Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"I did what had to be done, they're monsters-"

"The only monster I see is YOU!"

Shouts thunder beyond the thin door separating me from my papa. As Papa's temper rose, my tears welled in my eyes and my cries as meek as a mouse was drowned out by their fighting.

"Papa? "

"This is your punishment for needless harm. If you had left them be, we could have-"

"Could have what? They are unpure, unjust-"

"I will not have you insult them just because you have lost love for them. You are the one who is wrong, not them."

My cries grow louder and more shrill as reality set into my heart. My chest ached as my lungs begged for air as my cries shifted to call out for my mother, my siblings and cousins, gone somewhere far away where I could not reach them.

All that remained was the faded smell of burning wood in my nose and the soot in my clothing.
And Papa.

My uneasy feet shamble towards the door, weaving around forest green utroms as they reached for me. Tears blurred my vision as I struggled to open the heavy door, only halting when the screaming on the other side began to shake the walls.

"What good are they, disgusting and immoral!"

"Do you hear yourself? Do you hear how self-centered you sound?"

"P-p-pa-"

"Self-centered? I am doing this for our collective betterment!"

"Betterment? Is this what you call better?"

As the shouting match continued concealing my cries, the utroms by my side that try to coax me from the door are pulled away suddenly. The bonsai tree that sat nestled in the corner of the room suddenly sprouted out of its pot. Roots wrapping around the caring aliens and the caregivers and pinning them to the ceiling. Branches crawl along the walls and creeping into the cracks of the door, reaching inside the tracks at the bottom and piercing through the paper.

"Papa!"

With my cry, the door is torn from its frame, allowing me to run to Papa with tears and snot flowing down my face while he tugged at his pants.

His sections of his skin glowed as molten orange chains wrapped around my distant uncle with hair as white as a cloud in the sky, white eyes with no irises and skin as taunt as if a newly young man again.

"Gone papa, they're gone!"

The chains disappear in a flash, returning to the marks along his body. Picking me up and humming a song that vibrated the top of my head and ignoring Uncle until I calmed. Papa's next words were an intense whisper.

"Get out."

"What?"

"I said, get out. You are no longer wanted here. The Utrom may help you, but under no circumstances are you to come around my family again. Not until you learn remorse."

Uncle raged destroying the room around us. Door frames cracked, vases thrown. I buried myself deeper into fathers embrace, soaking in the smell of burnt oranges.

"You will regret this, do you hear me?" Uncle roared.

"All I regret is allowing you to go this far. I thought after so many years you would change. It is my nature to have hope…but I can not be unrealistic. Not anymore."

I watch with baited breath as the hidden Utroms drifted in closer from every corner, separating Uncle from Papa. Turning to face the front door to see the parade of Utroms guiding him out.

Uncle scoffs before turning to me.

"Boy!"

I jolt in fear. Looking into Uncles pure white eyes send a shiver down my spine.

"You want peace? Be decisive and strike before they can hurt you first. They will hurt you, and when they do, then you will find me."

The last thing out of his mouth before disappearing into the night.

I can't help but choke on my sobs. Lifting my head to look at father again-

"AHGHHHH!"

Ribs breaking.
Organs punctured.
Lungs filling with blood, iron strong in the back of my throat.
Red, hate filled eyes.

"P-Pu-please…you-"

Another punch to the chest.
Another rib stabs into my back.

"I warned you old man…don't fuck with my freedom."

Anton's deep, hearty voice makes a cold shiver run through my spine. A voice so deep it shakes me to my core and invokes nothing but fear.

"Don't listen to him Shiro."
Papa's voice is soft in my ear. I can almost see him, brown skin, short brunette hair. Just like-

"Pops!"

The sounds of sobs surround me. My head lays in the lap of my youngest child while the others cried out to me. Michelangelo's tears wet my face, filling me with determination.

My Hope.

"Mmooore-too."

The guardians. Where are our guardians?

"Mmmmooore-toooo."

"More too? Who is that?"

"That would be me."

Michelangelo's hair leaves my eye line and at the door of my home stands my friend.

"Do not worry Shiro-san, your family is safe."

I was asleep before the full sentence registered in my mind. The children would be okay, that was all I needed.

That was what father had done.

"I understand. I will not stop you…I only wanted to right the past."

Tears spring into my eyes at the finality of papa's words. Now 17, I stood frozen outside the open window of our apartment, forced into silence as the guardian that slipped from the shadows of the alley wrapping a hand around my mouth and preventing me from stepping a foot closer. When the guardian tries to pull me away from the scene, I struggle.

He needed to hear everything, no matter how heartbreaking.

"You are still so weak."

"You may see me as weak, but you can never kill my Hope. It is in my nature."

The sound of heavy foot foot falls…before a loud a sudden snap.

Shiro's heart burns in his chest and he is grateful for the guardian as they withhold the cry from his chest. The same heart ache he felt as a child returned.

Back then he didn't understand the grief and pain, but now, now it consumed him.

"I am sorry Young Master. I am so sorry."

Years pass in seconds, he hardly notice them fly by.

Five years.

10 years.

50.

Hamato Shiro should be dead by now, but the mutagen prevents it.
His face and body changes. The Utroms give him the technology to hide it.

A century. He trains and travels. Following his gut, wondering when he will find his family again.

He doesn't find them.

They find him.

"-sorry, I'm s-suh-suh-"

Splinters eyes finally creak open and the first thing he sees is

'Mama'

She's holding onto his hand and sobbing into the palm. Her stutter takes her breath with each attempt to speak to, her eyebrows scrunch with every hiccups as she fails to take in air.

"Maaa-maa."

His eyes lie to him. Though he sees his deceased mother staring down at him with glowing brown skin with a beautiful mark under her left eye, the tears that splash his face bring him back to reality. Remembering his mama is long gone and it was his turn to care for the crying child that he had once been.

"Aaan..ngel."

His speech his muffled by the oxygen mask around his mouth and the tubes in his nose. With every movement, sparks of pain strike every nerve in his body but that does not stop Splinter from reaching his hand up to stroke her cheek with a clawed thumb and a smile reaches across his snout.

"I-I-I'm so suh-sorry Sp-sp-splintuh! An-an-Anton wasn't,-I din' think-" Angel was in hysterics but Splinter could only hush her from behind the flow of air.

"Shiro-san. Ms. Zeck." Mortu gently glided in from the other side of his hospital bed in his robotic suit. "Ms. O'Neil and Mr. Jones have begun their treatment, it's best we begin Angel's-"

"Treatment?" Angel's voice cracked with fear. "W-whew-what t-t-truh-treatment?"

Splinter squeezes her hand, lightly but enough to calm her breathing. When she looks into his eyes, she watches them shift from that comforting honey brown to a dark, forest green. Splinter gave off the smell of lavender and chamomile and her heart beat finally began to slow.

"Ms. Zeck, I don't know how to explain to you, but you are apart of something much larger than all of us. You, your brother, your friends, the Foot. We are just here to help you remember." Mortu speaks gently. "You must allow us to help you."

Angel looks up at the strange alien in his human suit . The very same one that escorted her away after graduation and brought her to the TCRI building in upper Manhattan. After only a day of yelling at orderlies and rejecting food, they finally began to explain to her the past nights events and revealing the semi-healed body of Splinter. He had changed from how Angel remembered him to be. His face was long with a wet nose, body covered in hair and clawed nails on his finger. He looked like a giant rat… and yet she had known it was Splinter just by the feeling of love in her heart.

Among the damage he held scars and bruises any place where hair did not reign, and his off hand was in a protective brace, but there was no way that was not the man that had become her father figure after her own father passed.

She looks him in his soft eyes and the smile on his snout gave her all the assure she could need.

"What…What do I have to do?"

Day one: Morning

"Status on Kr'aang?"

Anton stands in the control pit of the ship, staring up at the hub screen projection of Hobbs with arms crossed and a heavy set frown. He looked far from pleased about the condition of the brown panther, roughed up with a swelling knot over his working eye and a bandage wrapped around his forehead. The places of singed off hair makes Anton mentally question what the hell they've been up to since parting ways.

"We been 'avin' some troubles wit' transportation. TC left tuh find a boun'y and make some credit."

"Ch'rell didn't pay youse? He just expected you to find Kr'aang on yuh own dime?"

When the old panther nods as if this was the norm, Anton can't resist pinching the bridge of his snout. Anton can feel his fury building but now wasn't the time to release it. Just another offense to add to Ch'rell's laundry list of actions that has fucked them over, again. Now TC was off doing who knows what.

"How much do you need, give me a numbuh."

Hobbs' eye widened before a hiss of pain slipped between his maw.

"Really?"

"I don't want youse all doin' fuckin' side quests just to make some change. I need youse concentrated on findin' Kr'aang. "

When Anton looks at the amount of credits Ch'rell had stored, it wasn't a number big enough to make his eye roll into his head but it was a good comfortable number in the mid hundred thousands. It however also meant he would have to keep a watchful eye on it, especially when they refueled and restocked on water. They themselves were going to need to find a way to stock up on money to assure the felines were paid.

'Another thing for me to worry about. '
No matter, that's what being in charge gave him.

The warthog sends the credits without waiting for Hobbs answer. He knows the feline has seen it by the long pause.

"Get TC back, focus on Kr'aang. That's an order."

"…What happened to Master Ch'rell?"

"You got a complaint 'bout new management?"

Hobbs is quick to shake his head in negation, opening his mouth probably to kiss his ass or praise him in self preservation. Anton is quick to silence him by raising an open palm.

"All I can tell youse is Ch'rell lied tuh all of us and it set us back. I'm in charge now, like I was supposed to be."

The panther 's silence is brief. "He's just never been one to allocate funds to others."

Anton laughed and shook his head in disbelief. It was no wonder Kr'aang was the actual brains to this operation if all Ch'rell could do was use fear to get people to follow him. Time for Anton to profit from it.

"I get it if you wanna break yuh contract, youse ain't got a reason to stay but we really need someone out there looking for Kr'aang. I'll pay yuh food, water and fuel." The warthog spoke as if second nature. "You need to be fully in if you in. I don't take half-assed 'fuh no reason. If yuh fuck up, just tell me so I can be proactive. We starting wit' a fresh slate but three strikes and you out. That sound fair to you?"

His voice is strong and steady, expertly hiding his own concerns. He knows losing them is high in the cards but deep in his chest he knows they won't leave. No rhythm or reason but just from Hobbs' heavy sigh and the visible release of the tension in his shoulders, Anton knows his gut is correct.

"Well get TC back and give you a final answer but, I wouldn't mind consistent, paid employ. I'll be honest, was worried you lot was still mad about the take over and the OneHorn-"

"Ivan, She and He. I, never wanna hear that word again." Anton's lip twitch with hardly restrained anger and Hobbs can see it plainly. Hobbs is quick to correct himself after that stare, turning his head to avoid it.

"Heard, I'll pass on the message. It's a wonder to see someone like 'im, we thought they was extinct. The last one I ever saw was a gladiator-"

"Beebs?"

Anton's heart pounds in his ears and his blood charges hearing his lovers voice directly behind him. He cut the transmission before anything else could leave either of their lips, wanting to protect his partner from the topic at hand.

Turning to face Ivan, Anton chokes on his words looking up at his partner. He could feel a shock around his temple that turns his visor on, shifting his vision to a soft violet light. Even when he lifts the visors to clear his sight, Ivan still seemed to be surrounded by a pink, gauzy filter.

In a green tank-top still too small to fit and leather vest no where to be seen, in place of her cameo pants Ivan instead wore a deep red, asymmetrical cut skirt around her waist covered in embroidery of tiny, four pronged stars in a pale pink color

Anton didn't know how to describe it other than the fact that it just fit. The same way the terrifying, authoritative look slid on and off her like a second skin. That softer look felt like a lost puzzle piece finally put in place; a complete, happy picture. He could see it in the swish of her tail, the bounce in her gait making her skirt expand like a flower and the joyous sparkle in the darkness of Ivan's pupils. Those stars deep in those dark pools were even easier for Anton to get lost in the kaleidoscopic gaze than ever before, so easy in fact they never truly saw Ivan walk closer until he patted the warthogs cheek.

"Pay attention Lover Boy, is this what I'm usually like?" Ivan snaps him out of the hypnotic stare. She watches first hand as Anton's pupils shrink to their correct size, though the cheesy smile does not disappear.

"Hey cut me some slack, what you expect tuh happen, walkin' around like that?" Anton retorts.

Confusion suddenly fills Anton's face as Ivan began crowding his personal bubble, squeezing himself into the cockpit barely big enough for the both of them. She straddles Anton against the seat while blocking his view on the console or HUD with only a playful pouting face to look back at him.

"Well why ain't yuh hangin' out wit me then? Everyone else is boring and don' wanna wrestle. "

Ivan soft, sad eyes and the pout of his bottom lip all while wrapping her arms around his neck. Ivan is really pulling out all the stops but, Anton can't match it like he usually would. He couldn't meet her eyes as he started to ramble.

"I gotta fix what Ch'rell fucked up, that includes those damn cats. He ain't been payin' 'em, can you believe dat shit? Our only ally are freakin' nutjobs, Saki keeps filling my head-"

Anton is silenced with a kiss.

As if his thoughts and worries were paper and Ivan was the wind to blow them all away. The only thought that fills his mind is how her muscular hips shift above him and how they fit in his palm. Sliding his hands up her back, taking in every little curve of muscle from the back of her shoulders down to the small of her back. He can feel where the freckle stars cover her back and glimpses of deep urges and thoughts of the other float to the surface.

Anton doesn't remember the last time they had a moment alone like this. It's been so long he can't remember.

All too soon Ivan pulls away, prompting Anton to complain with a groan. She just laughs smoothing down the fur against the warthog's cheeks with dewy, pink eyes.

"There, I can see yuh face again."

It takes a second for Anton to remember that the sparkles in her eyes did more than just pull people in.

Ivan was already very good at reading everyone's individual emotions in his humble opinion. No matter who it was, anxiety covered their face almost like a blanket in their marked color. Sometimes it was a thin, small layer of nauseating anxiety but, it could also be so thick that it would be impossible to see them. There was no word to describe the emotion, it was as if Ivan felt the emotion was running through his own system.

Anton was more than just anxious.

Though the kiss had lifted the cover of anxiety and the stress became evident underneath it all, that stony face but the encompassing self hate flowed through her own brain and in her eyes she could see the resounding cloud of shame brought a chock full of raging lightning as the physical representation of it all. It ebbed and flowed in intensity but never disappeared, it sat like a stone in Ivan's stomach.

"It's not yuh fault, youse know that right?"

"I know but-"

"No butts 'cept my own. Ch'rell's a scheming prick and youse helped us remember that. Yuh deserve a break, youse said so yuhself." Ivan pulled Anton into her chest, face and tusks smothered by plush chest. The warthog can't help but sigh when he looks up at Ivan who stared down at him with worry etched clearly across his face.

He knows he should be happy, or at the very least content to be in his current position but deep in his chest all he can feel is guilt and he knows Ivan could feel it. His grasp on his lovers' back turn tighter as his mind drifts to Oroku Nessa.

With each passing second, the memory became clearer and the contrition grew. Every time he blinked, all he could see was the clean slice, the gush of blood staining snow white skin and the frozen look of fear on his lovers' face. As if stamped permanently to the back of his eyelids, the terror and tears running down Mirri's cheeks and the screams of his surrounding family.

All he had done was freeze.

As still as a statue.

Anton can't help but tighten his hands and grip the others rough flesh just to ground himself in the present. The static builds under his palms as the memory played over and over in his mind. The pressure inside his skulls only lessens when the electricity releases and Ivan's sharp inhale is the only noise in the still room. Feeling the other wriggling on top of him makes him remove his hands and back away from her chest with an apology on his snout.

"I'm sorry, I can't-"

"Uh, don' worry too much."

Something warm and hard pokes against Anton's stomach. Anton doesn't have to look down to know what it is. Scanning his eyes up to catch the stars across her gray skin give off a pastel glow and the small bite of her bottom lip all while refusing to look at Anton.

Anton lifts an eyebrow and quirk at the corner of his mouth with a surprised huff.
"You…like dat? I thought-"

"It's uh…kinda inconvenient now, huh? I think it's a you thing, hehe."

Though he chuckles, her irises change from yellow with worry to a mixed gradient with a dim hot pink. Ivan's emotions were just as available to others as theirs were to her if you looked close enough. The stars in his pupils changing colors like a mood ring. Ivan tried to close his legs and cover the bulge with her own hands, the feeling of her own embarrassment and lust clouding her own sense.

Anton grabbing his wide hips to pull her back into his lap is the only way to grab her attention.
"Lift your skirt."

"Huh?"

"I just realized I been neglecting yuh, I gotta make it up to youse."

"I jus' said youse need a break, why-"

Ivan gasps being picked up, arms curling up and eyes wide, having forgotten his boyfriend could just, do that. Anton doesn't grunt in effort or struggle turning his back to the console with knees on the seat and laying her back against the cool metal floor. Anton presses one hand against the notch in her back and the other underneath her thigh, flexing his grip to send a wave of static directly to her spine. A heavy quiver racked through her body but the static is only a fraction of the reason Ivan and her mini-me stand stiff at attention.

"Lift. It."

The bass in Anton's voice almost numbs Ivan's brain but watching that dark cloud disappear makes Ivan smile. Her eyelids flutter when she painfully slowly glides her large hands down her chest, never breaking eye contact. Down her stomach to his skirt, teasing the other by pulling the skirt from the tent that grew.

Anton knows he's fallen exactly where Ivan wanted him to, but that means very little to him. What does matter is the visible shift in her eyes. The dull pink turned bright and glowing, almost sparkling. That with the toothy grin across her face makes Anton's heart skip a beat.

Anton can't decide rather to look at her face as he licked at his bottom lip or her hands as the edge of the skirt was all that was left covering his crotch.

He decides that watching either isn't enough.

Karai doesn't remember a moment more relaxing in her entire life. The sunbeams that rained down on her warmed her to the bone. She could feel her spine decompressing all the way down to the tip of her tail. Her hair was down, a pair of sunglasses on her face and her mind rang clear and empty; a feat she never thought possible.

The planet simulated a similar atmosphere to Earth, a slightly more pressurized gravity but nothing enough to harm them and their strengthened bodies, with several moons in the sky that could be seen hovering in the pale pink sky. The light refraction of the ocean, though scarily similar to the color of blood, gave the sky a coral pink blush. Several clusters of isolated islands but the only source of certifiable life lay under the surface of the scarlet seas, a feature that was only shown thanks to their full control over the ships features without a certain Utrom keeping them in the dark.

From pale pink sand to grey gravel just before white weed-like plants that covered the ground, Dr. Stockman sat upon an infirmary bed sheet creating a flattened patch. He stashed himself away from everyone else with a clipboard, toolbox and his last M.O.U.S.E.R. sentry that he began cracking open. He felt a rare semblance of peace under the cool shade of the trees, peace in solitude without isolation.

Slash watched from the top of a sand dune as Xever and Chris watched Chaplin hobble to and from the ocean with a sample of water in a test tube to bring to a table they had relocated from the ship. The duo watched the doctor test the liquid against all sort of things, boiling it from a burner, running it through a centrifuge all while leaning against the wooden cane in their grasp.

Chris watched Chaplin with a close eye, visibly perturbed that he could not jump into the ocean by the view of his crossed arms. Being restricted from touching the salmon-tinged sea foam made the dog huff out loud for the 6th time that hour, Slash is the only one to dignify it with a response.

"Chris, I'm shocked youse not joinin' Rahzar."

"Digging holes? No thanks." Chris huffs.

Aforementioned wolf-dog stuck his head out of the hole as wide and deep as his entire body before returning to his task with a wagging tail and a slobbering tongue. The hole he considered his magnum opus grew deeper and wider by the second and his enthusiasm was unfettered.

"Which is a shock to me," Chaplin interjects without moving their eyes from the rotating vial. "Gottard loved to dig when my papa went out exploring with the metal detector."

"I'm sorry, what?" Xever choked back his laughter, sensing the wheels turning in Chris' brain ever so slowly as he turned to stare the oblivious doctor down. Chris' voice cracks as he asked the dreaded question out loud.

"You saying you mutated me from your damn dog?"

"Well, not his DNA if that's what you mean. You just reminded me of him. Opinionated and loud. Dramatic with a high need to expel excess energy. Seemed fitting." Chaplin spoke slower, taking a pipette to the now still and separated ocean water to glance at under a microscope. The shotgun laugh from Xever makes Chris' eye twitch as he stared out into open space, crossed arms tense and flexing his fists.

"Chaplin, answer me this, does the dog breath compare-"

Xever hardly gets to finish the question before Chris tackles him into the sand. Their wrestling match rolls underneath the table, upsetting the state of the equipment and almost toppling Chaplin. They can try to keep the table still as the two roll around in the sand, closer towards Rahzar in his hole. The pup had emerged, watching with wide eyes and growing pupils before the excitement overwhelms him and he joins the tumble.

Tokka and Slash's sighs line up watching them roll around while Karai is the only one to begin cackling at the sight.

"Oh, so when Baby Ivan leaves than people wanna wrestle. I see youse guys really doin' my baby dirty." Everyone's eyes turned to Bebop as he and Rocksteady carefully stepped down the gangplank, closely intertwined together. Rock held onto Bebop's left arm with both arms, hands clasped tightly together with unfocused, half lid eyes. With the freckles across her body glowing like a bundle of fireflies, no one has to ask what transpired.

"Is okay, imma chill out." Rocksteady spoke softly. Bebop walks her over to Karai's sheet in the sand to gently sit them next to each other and kissing the top of his bald head.

"If you need anything, don't hesitate to say so. Right, Errand Boy?"

Directly next to Karai with a jug of water in his mechanical fingers, Ch'rell's scowl was deep from his fish bowl encasement. His cloudy and scarred eyes missing the stares from the others and only feeling the erratic electricity that shocks his muscles. He speaks only two words.

"Yes…sir."

The laughter is instantaneous. The twin cackles from Rocksteady and Karai are the loudest while that beehive buzz of a laugh from Stockman haunts him in the back ground. Even hearing Chris' guff of a laugh over top the sounds of the ocean formed a body wide migraine that forced a shivering throughout his little body. With their face morphed to a snarl and teeth exposed like a dog, the audible growl is inevitable.

Just as quick as the growl escaped his mouth a heavy wave of electricity snatches the growl from their vocal cords, turning it into a heavy whine. From his tentacles upwards to the tips of the feelers on the top of his head, the pain paralyses him. His limbs curl and his skin burns just underneath the surface and he can feel his blood vessels bursting from the overcharge of electricity in his blood.

"Watch yuhself. Everythin' in my body and soul is telling me to kill you, but youse more useful to me alive so be grateful and fucking. Smile."

The same motif that Ch'rell once said to him and the command are followed by a sharp uptick in static shock. Amber bubbles expand from their ruby red skin and with a gargled yowl escaping his maw. The scowl is sharply tugged at the skin around his mouth by some invisible force, shaping the corners into a wide, unnatural smile that was too big even for them.

Bebop huffs, clear disappointment on his face. Despite the smile, the chasm in the Utroms's brow line showed defiance.

"Youse and me are gon' have to work on that, sooner rather 'den later." Bebop turns to walk away from the alien but even with his back turned, Bebop could feel the muscle under the Utrom's skin flexed into that forced, uncanny grin, he can hear their heartbeat skip a beat before speeding up at his ominous implication.

Music to his ears.

"Seems like the perfect time to let everyone know that the water has been declared safe, HOW-EVE-ER!” Chaplin raises his voice to stop Chris who had almost taken off into the sea.

"I highly suggest you do not ingest too much water as I will not know the long term effects it may have until, you know. Later. And watch the waves, don't get pulled by a riptide-"

"Yeah, yeah I got it!"

Chris is off into the ocean with Rahzar close behind him, one diving with precise form and the other wadding around in a doggy paddle. Chris only pokes his soaking wet head's back out to wave before disappearing under the waves again.

"He'll be fine, you all want Chris happy an' quiet, or Chris bored an' "opinionated"?" Slash asked.

The answer is obvious by their silence.

Afternoon

"If you are going to bother Stockman, please refrain. He's so quiet and I'm reveling in the silence." Karai spoke out as she and Tokka soaked in the sun. Though she did not lift her head along with the pair of sunglasses over her eyes and the crash of the waves loud in her ears they still heard Slash as he shuffled over to the treeline as the sand sifted under foot.

"Nah just…wanted tuh drag some stuff ovuh…firewood, rocks." His voice trails off with each word.

"A bonfire? What for?"

"I mean, why not." His answer is hushed, barely a whisper over the sounds of the waves crashing all around them. He was quieter than how he used to be as the leader of the Purple Dragons, but even more so…

"Lolo, somefin touched me!'

"It was a piece of seaweed, Sunshine. You can eat it straight from the ocean, see."

"Nooo, don't eat it, don't!"

Karai didn't know what do with this new memory, a far cry different than anything else she remembered so far.

Lotus Blossom had begun practical the first couple days, giving skills and knowledge that Karai had never had before that were incredibly useful. The Utrom language they once struggled to comprehend became clear, like second nature. She could also feel the ground underneath her, like a heartbeat beneath her. She dug her hands in the sand buried underneath the sand, small sprigs of grass appeared right where their palms would be. It felt natural, it felt amazing.

But the memory was so sweet, it made Karai's teeth ache and stomach churn so much she felt sick. They sat up from their back and turned at the waist to look at Slash with full attention.

"…What was Lotus Blossom like?"

Slash's silence is loud. In their solitude with only a sleeping Tokka between them, a multitude of things run through his brain. All he can muster is a puff of air from his nose.

"Shouldn't you know that?"

"I have memories, but I did not experience them so I have no emotions. You do."

"Why do you care?"

"I am simply trying to make sense of her love for…well…you." Karai subconsciously rolls her eyes and huffs a laugh at her phrasing but all she can hear in response is a shaky breath before the crunch of the sand beneath his feet sound again, far away from her and in a hurry. Karai can barely process the snapper running from her before Tokka lifts his head to stare at his mama with a tilted head and quirk in his beak. When she sees his face, they purse her own lips to point at him while lifting her shades.

"Yes Tokka, is there something you wished to say?"

"Not…Cool."

The alligator snapper stands to chase after his brother in the waves, leaving Karai to sit in her cruelty alone.

Night

As day turned to evening, the sky turning a dark fushia and the oceans reflection of the sun shining a brilliant violet as it set behind the horizon. One by one all of the swimmers returned from the sea. Rahzar was slow and sluggish, tired with a smile across his face as he shook his fur free of water water before heavily plopping down beside his mama. Tokka, just as exhausted and happy as his brother followed curled up as close to Slash as physically allowed.

Rocksteady carried Xever in the princess carry to return to shore and return him to his robotic legs, all while Bebop cackled at the fish who stared at him with his lip ring pursed out into a heavy frown.

Chris however, continued to swim. With the closest moon having replaced the sun, Big, bright and strangely blue with a background of smaller moons as they sped past. Chris fought the currents as to not be pushed to the shore. His mind ran from him with everything he had to comprehend. Ch'rell, Slash, his parents, Timothy. Too many harsh topics that floated with time as he pushed himself to exhaustion.

Chris only stopped swimming as evening turned to night and the bright purple reflection of the evening ocean turned dark and he could no longer safely discern up from down.

From the shore with the waves lapping at his paws, his mind finally settled on the topic of space; a concept he only cared about as a child. An ironic fact that inevitably turning this thoughts back to Timothy's invisible influence that reached its way into Chris' life, even before he remembered.

Chris Bradford's Too Ruff Crew hadn't been too popular, it hadn't even lasted all that long. A little animated project, a Star Trek rip off that his dad had funded to keep him occupied and nothing had kept his attention more than the sound of his own name.

Another scary fact of the matter, Chris had been allowed to design the characters. Though the designs were rudimentary and messy for a child drawing, when given to skilled artists, it was obvious all characters were a copy of the current people on the ship. Even down to the spherical shape of the ship, it was almost perfectly identical.

He could excuse Slash, that was his cousin and he had known the other his entire life. However the others, he had no faintly reason to know them, their styles, their mannerisms. All he had left out was their actual names. The connection was too obvious to try and deny and all of it had come from Timothy Ravenwood.

The boy with endless time on his hands as he could not go to public school, could not look outside the motel he resided in and was isolated for the entirety of his short life had…looked into the future? Predicted, drawn and shown it all to Chris in his own formative years without him knowing it?

If that lonely boy could do all that within the confined of a dingy motel, why couldn't Chris do half as much with all the resources at his disposal?

Bradford shook his head, ridding himself of more than the water soaked into his fur. Now wasn't the time to dig into that, or ever maybe.

A howl of laughter from the bonfire pit returns Chris to reality. A reality where he is not the scared kid with his past life as his only friend.

Walking up behind Xever and Bebop as they pushed at each other and laughed. Their laughter made his back itch, he knew they were not laughing at him but that didn't help his mind from thinking it was so. He can only plaster on the smile he's long perfected onto his maw as Xever catches sight of him from the corner of his eyes. He had to play the right part.

"Finally leaving the ocean Ariel?" Xever's snide remark.

"Bite me, Fishface. Who made the bonfire?" Chris asks.

Slash grunts from his spot across as he sat in front of the fire, his mask nowhere to be seen and eyes glued to the flames. Tokka laid his head on the smaller terrapins leg all while Karai stared with anger palpable from their steely gaze on the mutant she had dubbed her child.

An obvious trap that he wasn't going to touch with a 10 foot pole.

"Where's Stock-bug?" Chris asked while sitting between Chaplin and Xever. The aforementioned bug hybrid had long left his position from the white petaled weeds leaving only an impression of where he last sat. Bebop gave off a hearty, sinister laugh that frightened the canine.

"Off preppin'. Can't spoil the surprise for Errand Boy." Bebop looked at Ch'rell robotic suit just behind Karai with a smug grin on his snout. "Oh! Check what I can do."

The glow in Bebop's eyes are bright violet as he raises his hands, the symmetrical marks up his wrist glowing bright as his hands crackle with static. Through the servos and connections of the android suit, that same illuminating purple light surges throughout before a foot awkwardly sticks out into the sand. Step by awkward step, Ch'rell comes forwards before he stands right between the shiba and koi mutants. Chris could see the Utrom within their containment cell with a mess of rice across his face and sunken in eyes.

"He upset Karai around lunch." Chaplin clarifies at the confused tilt of the shiba's head.

"How'd you figure you can do that?" Chris questions, smile faltering under the surface.

"Don' know. Just kinda…felt right." Bebop flexes his hands and Ch'rell's suit begins a slower, even more awkward version of the Robot than thought to be possible. Chris is quick to join the laughter between Xever and Rocksteady, however the itching feeling down his back only gets worse.

"Cool that's…real cool." His voice is hollow, he can't barely pretend to hold the mask of happiness up to his face. Not when a disgusting feeling he had forgotten about returned in full.

"Bozz! Everything'zz ready!"

Stockman appeared from the docking bay doors, hands wrapped in each other with a full body shiver, dripping with excitement if his large smile and the droplets of acid were a good indicator. Bebop flexed his hands again to begin Ch'rell began his unsteady lurch towards the ship with Bebop and Chaplin standing from their logs to follow.

"Good job Stock-boy. Karai, offer still stands."

The snake hybrid says nothing, simply shakes her head in negation while their eyes stayed glued to her oldest who continued to ignore her.

With each step up the gangplank, Bebop spoke back the few left around the bonfire.

"Yo, we're gonna be here for a couple days so rest up. I don't expect youse to know how yuh powers work right now but expect a baseline at some point after we bounce."

Another god damned test. Chris could feel his ears fold over subconsciously.

"Get comfy with these powers and each otha'. Seriously, we got a long trip ahead uh us and I needs all of yuh to get that we really are stuck with each other. If you need any of us, we'll be in da lab."

Ch'rell is surrounded by both doctors and newly minted chief back onto the ship, fear evident in his face. When the doors close silently behind them, only then does Chris groan out loud and cover his eyes with now matching sized paws.

"Great, just great. How do we get these stupid powers to work?"

When he uncovers his eyes to stare at everyone left, all he is met with are shrugs. He sighs and re-covers his eyes, as if to make the issue disappear.

Out of sight, out of mind. If only that really worked.

"What…was 'Ton like as a teen?"

All eyes turn to Ivan. Eyes off the loading dock and back towards the former gang members with curiosity in her voice and a curious sparkle in his eyes.

"Youse four are the best people tuh ask. Was he always so…?" Ivan struggles finding the correct word, so they try to assist.

"Brutal?" Xever's response.

"Hardcore?" Slash questions.

"Staunch?" Karai attempts.

"Cool." the definitive answer from Rocksteady.

Xever, Karai and Slash laugh suddenly. It shocked them all so much they stop to look at each other in before the laughter reinvigorates twice as loud. The pit in Chris' stomach gets bigger as they bonded over Anton.

"I don't know if cool is the right word, but it fits. The first time I met Anton he had gotten into a fight with some Purple Dragons. The boy was black and blue at the end of it but you should have seen the others." Xever cackled, the flames of the bonfire raising high overhead.

"You think that's hard, first chance he had alone wit me, he told me to get my head out my ass and stop being a damn drunk. What had he said?" Slash scratched at his chin. "'You look like yuh held together by booze n' silly string'. Yeah, he's always been like that. Most times even Dragon Face didn't fuck wit' him."

Chris doesn't add to the conversation, taking a twig of firewood to stab at the burning tinder. He has to focus on not grinding his teeth together when Slash praises the pig.

"I believe Anton has earned the right," Karai glanced between the former Dragons with a smirk on her lip and raised brow. "with everything he has experienced and yet he does not wish to see you hung is astounding to me. "

Xever and Slash nod in agreement. The warmth of solidarity from the connection around their youngest makes them freeze in place from the question out of Ivan's mouth.

"What I still don' get is…why?"

Surrounded by the sounds of the ocean, whatever smiles and comfort that had been created instantly shattered at Ivan's heated red stars. His intense stare is worsened by the flames of the bonfire reflected back at them.

"Donnae get me wrong, I'm all for bein' youse guys' friend and all but youse gotta help me understand. Why do all of…that?"

From Xever on one side to Slash on the other, then onto Chris right across from the fire her glowing marks take hold. While their pupils do not grow big, they can all still feel the tug of the answer deep in the recesses of their mind.

And yet something stopped the truth. Pulling it away from the light of the fire and back towards the cage of darkness it has been enclosed in.

"I…I don' know why." Xever does not fight the hold. His voice is hollow, trembling and full of vulnerable confusion. Tears well into his eyes that he wipes away before they can fall. "There is no reason…I just remember being so, so angry?" Xever's eyes stay captivated by the fire, now a wilting flame at his confused tone.

"…I don't know either." Slash sounded lost. His eyes swishing in the sockets looking for the answer but all that appears in that blank space of memory is misplaced disgust and loathing. No matter how much he tried, he couldn't remember where it stemmed from. "Not exactly the first kid like him to show up to the Dragons, probably wasn't even the last…Why didn't I stop it?"

Chris' withholds a whine deep in his throat at their melancholy, confused states. Seeing his cousin's grab at his head in an attempt to remember and Xever hanging his head in shame, Chris can't take much more of the sight as his heartbeat speeds up in his chest.

'It wasn't as if I forced them to go with my plan, they're grown adults'

However seeing the people he cared about most, crying over following his lead makes his fists tighten into his pants, damn near ripping them apart with his claws.

"Well Bradford? What's your excuse for cooking somethin' that fucked?" Ivan raises an eyebrow ridge and an instant migraine wraps around his skull. The pain and anger builds into a deep growl in his chest. The headache only dispels when it all becomes too much and he breaks the stick in his hand.

"Fuck off! I ain't gotta explain shit tuh you! Just 'cause you all are ridin' his nonexistent dick, don't mean I will too!" Chris forcibly stands from throws whatever is left of his stick into the fire while glaring at the rhino from across the fire. His yelling fills the empty air between the five of them, covering up the sounds of the ocean. "I apologized and Bebop accepted it, so stop askin' about it!"

All of their eyes are directly on him, wide and in shock over the sight of Chris' bright cyan eyes and the markings up his arms. The waves shifting across his arms, angrily swirling like a whirlpool. Ivan sees plain as day the anger in Chris' eyes and surrounding him like a bright blue flames, but underneath it all the deep seeded envy concentrated in Chris' gut made Ivan wince more than the anger. The spiral only visible to her only gave off nothing but wanting.

That is not a good enough reason to suppress her own ire.

The huff of the rhino's nose and the angry flick of her tail barely displays the extent of his fury. The stars on the back of Ivan's hands began to glow and from them, pink firefly sized lights wraps themselves around her large fists, forming two perfectly symmetrical knuckle dusters imitating her now too small, $100 shaped ones. When she stands, her fists tighten until the cracking noise rings clear, alerting them all of the mystic creations in his hands.

Two steps is as far as he gets before Slash steps in her path.

Slash was scared. It was written on his face clear as day, In the shake in his hands and the trembling yellow outline that surrounded the turtle.

As they stare into each others eyes, anger and fear present on their respective faces with a deathly stillness. Their communication is silent similar to a month prior, when Slash and Ivan had made their silent agreement.

For Bebop.

"Come on Ives. No point getting in trouble now, especially when you can get back at him in training." Karai intervenes, intertwining her smaller hands into Ivan's own and locking her burning glare towards Chris. A phantom stab to the side but not uncommon or unexpected from them.

"Let me come with, I can tell you a story about young Anton?" Xever leaves Chris' side to take Ivan's empty hand, acting as a secondary tether. For some odd reason, that hurts more that Karai's angry glare.

The pink knuckle dusters slowly disband and fade from existence as Xever and Karai half drag, half lead the larger of the trio up the gangplank with Rahzar close in tow. As Rocksteady passes Chris watching with an observant eye, the dog only doubles down by scowling back with raised hair on his neck. That disgusting jealousy is so bright and obnoxious, it makes her spit out his farewell.

"Jealousy suits you."

That one stung, much worse than either Karai or Xever's acts could ever muster. Chris watches them shuffle past him as the fire continues to dim having completely eaten away at its fuel. Inwardly, his gut churning with more guilt on his consciousness.

Outwardly however, Chris only scoffs, turning to grab at the pile of twigs to reignite the fire.

"Chris-" Slash barely starts before Chris interrupts.

"Don't start. I…I just can't right now."

Instead, Slash grabs Chris' shoulder and gently turns him. The turtles' face is hardened with clear disappointment that makes Chris tuck his tail in between his legs.

"I don' ask you fuh much, I get you got the idea from my pops and his dumb stories as a rookie, but we stopped doing that shit for a reason." With every word out of his cousins mouth, Chris' Adam's apple bobbled as he swallowed air, no saliva to wet his throat. He can feel himself start to rumble in his chest as adrenaline builds. "What did Ivan mean? Who are you jealous of?"

Chris can't pull himself to speak, but the tears in his eyes glow and his growl echoed around them.

Slash's mind flashed, the image of a young Jennikka the last time she was seen that quickly aged…wrong. Her facial feature grew wide and her skin darkened. Her hair, once a straight hay blond, darkened to purple at the root and coiled and her pale, corn blue eyes turned to a deep brown.

That judgmental face never changed but it was obvious to see Jennikka morphing into Anton.

"Huh-"

Chris shoved the turtle away from him, watching him stumble backwards to trip over the log he once sat on and into the sand.

"I am not jealous! Anton leaving was bound to happen! I did you a favor and you know it!" The tears finally began to drift down his face, soaking into his fur.

Chris can see the shock evident on his cousins face when he yells. Wide mouth and scared eyes…Before it disappears.

Pupils grow wide overtaking his irises and face turning blank and expressionless. His body is lax like a puppet had it's strings cut.

"Okay Chris…whatever you say."

Chris barely has time to compute what has happened before Slash stands again and shuffles like a zombie towards the ship. Tokka follows, high chirps and worried churrs not making it through the smaller snapper.

No
No way, there was no way
Same depressed cadence, same dead eyes
Nononononononononono.

The glow fades and the once whirlpool shaped marks shifted to that of a river streaming down his arms and fingers, almost akin to tears.

Where was Chaplin when Chris needed them?

Start of the Memory Arc

Chapter Text

Day Two: Morning

Why did I listen to him? Of all times, why on this one?

The sounds of whirring gyros from his legs mixed with the sounds of the ocean surrounded Xever as he strolled across the shore, just out of reach of the early morning waves. The sticky air was soothing against his skin, moisturizing and much more comfortable compared to the mid-day heat would allow. He took the same, even sized steps, placing his metal pads in the same prints from his first lap for the 3rd time within an hour and a half. While the island is small enough to see the ship at all times it was large enough to feel safe in his own space as he pondered, searched and prodded his memories to answer the question that continue to plague him.

Anton was never argumentative or out of line with the Dragons. He had been very helpful, other initiates had treated him like a mentor figure while officers tried and failed to make an example out of him. They gave him a task expecting failure and he would only deliver tenfold. In the four years he was around the Dragons, he had made them profitable than Dragon Face did in his entire time there. This was coming from only comparing one year without the young man.

He crafted heists, cased targets and memorized the patterns of employees before initiating anything. Most times he had Hun's approval and would even join in, the times he didn't, he instead asked for forgiveness that was often granted due to his successes.

Anton had a level of efficiency that Dragon Face wished for. Anton had incredible leader qualities and social skills, the ability to rally people and give commands as if it ran through his blood. This was all before his initiation became set in stone.

When he thinks about Chris and the Dragons…he was more of a child than the actual teenager. Complaining about tasks, treating recruits terribly, either down right ignoring them or being massively passive aggressive.

That was if Chris was even around.

Chris' schedule stayed packed. School, training, theater rehearsal or movie shoot before ballet just as the sun set in the horizon. After graduating high school, the schedule opened up some, but not a lot. Xever's heard all manner of complaints but no one ever said anything directly due to the fact that he was Hun's cousin.

When he combines the two together, he remembers nothing but good times except when he tries to remember the fated day in question or the time to Anton's botched initiation. The only thing that fills that space is rage and disgust and that was the part that confused the hell out of him. With Xever's past, Anton changing genders honestly made them more similar than he liked to openly admit.

The answer to why still remains unanswered. Why would he allow Chris to go through with hurting his brother? Willingly separating himself from the younger man without a second thought?

Yes, once upon a time his infatuation with Chris made him blindly think with his dick, but when it came to Anton he remembers being over protective of the boy. Getting into squabbles that when Hun tried to shut down only seemed to get worse.

Their anger was understandable at least, considering Xever never went through an initiation yet still had a dragon tattooed to his hand.

Unwillingly
Xever mentally add but, that wasn't the point.
He strains to glean anything from those days but when he remembers the events of that day, all that lay there was that misplaced feeling.

"Jealousy suits you."

Ivan's voice rings through his mind. It had been directed at Chris but who would Chris be jealous of?

Unless…

Xever begins to fidget with his thumb, flicking it against his curled index finger as if to imitate a lighter cap. Just out of the corner of his sight, a small spark catches his eyes.

Bringing his hand up to his face and flicking his thumb again, seeing a small lighter flame light at the tip of his thumb.

All thoughts of discovering Chris' jealousy halts as his heart began to beat out of his chest. The longer he stares and the greater the strain behind his eyes, the larger the sparks grows like a blowtorch.

A rush of endorphins flood his mind at the fiery fountain before his eyes. Despite the obvious dangers, he waves his hand through the flames, only a light tickling sensation across his scales. It does not burn how it should and the fact that it doesn't makes his scales shiver and the fluid in his throat fill.

He can't control how his mind returns to his youth, the sounds of the crowd, the look of approval from his brother right before-

Xever turns on his metallic heel to run back to the bonfire pit. He had finally made sense of the noxious saliva he produced.

Is that truly necessary?

No, I'm just telling you to do it fuh my entertainment, what do you think?

Chaplin can't help but scoff at the sass and sarcasm Falco projected in their brain. Sitting in the main bridge in pure silence, though a conversation was carried with quick, sharp wit. In their mind, the clear vision of Victor Falcone as the man squawked his crude explanation to how their power worked. When Chaplin closed their eyes it was as if he could see his own face talking back to them, annoyance clear on Falco's face.

I'm asking due to my past, I am sure you can search through my memories without my help.

Oh I'm aware Edward Scissor-Hands. I ain't asking you to slit yuh damn wrists, just whatever gets the blood flowing.

Have you always been so foul mouthed? It's a wonder Lotus Blossom could stand you.

Why don't you tell me how she 'stood' me?

A memory forces it way to the forefront of their mind, a memory so lewd and wrapped in a cloud of hazy pleasure that Chaplin fixes his hand around the blade in their lap, digging the jagged edges into the palm. The small bit of blood that falls to the floor stings on the way out and sizzles hitting the floor before hardening. Though the pain is minimal, it does the job of flinging the memory and emphasizing Victor's smoker laugh as it rattled around their skull.

Pussy.

Chaplin sighs out loud with a twitch in their eye from irritation.

Looking outside the hub window to see outside to the planet, taking in the view of the everyone as they began to rouse from slumber. Xever had gone on a walk while Karai and Ivan began stretches and Stockman reclaimed yesterdays position in the same patch of cat weed, now with a tablet and several computers surrounding him while he typed away with all hands to his hearts content. To their knowledge everyone else was asleep while Chaplin tried and failed to read through the notes created last night. She was too distracted by the effects of his powers and sadly that included the annoyance that was Victor Falcone.

Is there any sort of side effects I should be concerned about?

Oh there's tons but I can't really help you wit that.

And why not?

Because you are about as strong as a pencil.

Pencils can be dangerous.

Not in this context.

Are you willing to elaborate?

No~

The groan breaks the silence in the air. Chaplin's hasn't had the urge to pull their hair since he was a teen and now it was back full force.

The sight of Xever sprinting back towards the bonfire grabs Chaplin's eyes. The fish calls out to the girls and Baxter who all looked at Xever with annoyance or confusion clear on their faces. Chaplin can't help but wonder what the cause of commotion was for.

Just go join em, Pussy.

Chaplin only radiated logic in their response.

There's no need to, obsessive bastard. I am fine in here.

Oh, so you do enjoy talking tuh me.

A brief pause.

Maybe it would be better to be near Karai just to keep your mouth shut.

Now yuh learning.

Chaplin stuffed her notebook into his lab pocket and hobbled to the elevator, with every step they limp from the deep seated ache in their joints. This pain was not new to this carrot top just more extreme then how he remembered it being. Once upon a time they would limp on a bad day, but not like this. The ache had never reached this far into their joints before, and the migraine that was forming just above her ears used to be only a manageable headache. They almost want to grab their cane again but decide to power through it.

The conversation continues in stark silence as Chaplin pauses to lean against the cool metal walls in the elevator.

So why are you so obsessed with Karai? Seems rather unlike you.

I think you mean 'we' and Devotion ain't for the weak. It's part of our nature.

You said I was a pencil in strength.

Different context. I mean for the mentally weak.

Chaplin huffs in frustration at Falco's verbal hoops to figure out.

You would get it if you weren't such a-

Pussy? You've told me before.

The two continued to bicker back and forth as Chaplin took slow, measured steps through the docking-sun room to the disinfectant chamber before the outdoors. Salt and iron filled their nostrils in the humid morning breeze that felt like sticky sweat being layered over their skin.

But more interesting than anything else-

"What the-"

Xever stood in the ashes of the dead bonfire with a baton size piece of wood in his hand, both ends lit ablaze as he twirled it in between webbed fingers. The smile on his scaly face was larger than Chaplin had ever seen in the short time he knew the fish.

His glowing red eyes flash quickly to Chaplin and their amazement before returning his focus with renewed vigor and a strong, poised posture.

"I told you I used to be in the circus Chapstick."

Xever spun the baton faster and faster watching the flames blur into one bright circle, throwing it in the air to give himself time to jump to his hands in a handstand as they witness the bright wheel above his head, catching it with ease with one hand. As the baton weaved around the fish's nimble body, Ivan exclaimed, clapping and cheering him on just how the audience once did when he was younger. As if going back in time to a time much thought to be forgotten.

"That's awesome!" Ivan exclaimed at the spectacle.

Karai stared at the koi with raised eyebrows and corner of their lip turned up. Only Chaplin can hear the judgmental whisper under her breath.
"Look who finally found a personality."

"This is nothing. Watch this!"

Xever motions for the small crowd to back away from him as he takes the drift wood in both hands with one flaming side mere inches from his lip. Inhaling a deep breath and filling his mouth with the alcoholic tasting fluid he had begun to secrete like saliva, throwing his head back as far as it would go and directing the spray directly into the flames towards the sky.

Everyone's eyes grow wide in awe as the spray created a great plume of fire that covered up the early morning sun in a canopy of bright, autumn colors. The warmth burned overhead like a heated blanket, so comforting that even Karai can not hold back the ripple of her scales as the heat washed over them and warmed her to the bone. Their eyes flutter shut as she absorbs every second of it.

Chaplin wishes silently that they could blame their staring on Falco but, she was in utter silence due to Karai in the warm light. They could only mask their admiration by join the applause of Xever's showmanship.

The amazed silence shifts to loud cheering from Ivan whose wide sparkling eyes reminded him of better times. Baxter's shocked expression and Karai's shudder as they embraced the heat and took in his creation. He can feel the markings on his stomach swirl and writhe and it all feels so right.

Yet at the same time, something in his chest hurt. As if an elephant was stepping on his chest with it's full weight, the longer the stretch of flame stayed suspended in the air, the worse it became. His breathing became labored and the darkness grew around his vision. If it weren't for the fact his legs were not his own, he would have fallen over already.

"Uh, is that supposed tuh happen?" Ivan's cheerful face morphed to anxiety as the fiery arrow begins to shift it's form.

One lone spiral twisting higher into the sky as its shape became clearer. Long and slender with a pure white, flaming fringe acting like a halo against bright red head like an eel. Two bright white eyes emerge from the cloud of fire attached to the hood of a Gila monster and the slender body of an eel. With the hiss in its throat, the orange teeth it bared were sharp and plentiful in its mouth and clouds of flame from the corners.

Xever's bright red eyes quiver, unfocused with tears in his eyes. Only one word escapes past his lips.

"Boitatá."

The baton in his hand, a simple stick, burned away in the wind. The tether that once connected the free flying serpent vanished, leaving the flaming figure with free access to spread across the sky with no restrictions. An earth shaking roar spreads a rain of red-hot coals down upon the planet before rushing at top speed directly towards its creator.

"Duck!" Chaplin yelled, dropping into the sand with hands covering their head the ache in their body making their muscles tighten and pang like an over strung guitar string.

Rocksteady grabbed Karai and Stockman in both arms, shielding them between himself and the sand. The whoosh overhead blows sand in all direction around them towards Xever, barely dodging the charge by jumping to his side and rolling in the sand. Xever can only pull together enough mental strength to get those metal legs to run to the shore before abandoning his legs on shore and diving in the water without a second glance behind him.

Still encased by her friends hold, Karai watches with baited breath as the hot embers that sprinkled from the sky catch onto the foliage of a tree, lighting it up instantly. More and more the leaves catch and the fiery burn takes hold in her stomach She can't hold back the wail of pain and the surge of panic that forces her into her shifted form as her scales crawl up her skin.

"Xever stop that thing! Its going to start a wildfire!" Karai yells, her voice cracking.

"I barely know how I started it!" Xever pokes his head out of the water and quickly returning when the dragon tries to snap at his head. Karai can barely curse Xever's name as the pain strikes her again.

"Ivan, Stockman, help Karai with the fire!"

Chaplin hesitates just enough to hear them run towards the flames before taking off towards the beach. leaving Karai to fend on their own was most unacceptable.

Though still new to how their powers worked, Falco talked rapidly in his head as the beast starting to lose interest with its creator, dripping hot embers into the ocean creating a thick fog. They only have seconds to do as Falco says before it got further out of hand.

Taking the blade from his coat pocket, slicing the palms of his hands as long and wide as he can make the cuts, a flow of warmth line his limbs as a flow of magma encapsulates his hands. More and more magma blood turned shifted to the lava construct that the engineer attempted to make.

It was only then that Chaplin could make sense of Falco's earlier statement.
For lack of better phrasing, the power hurt a fucking lot.

This level of pain was new, not simply the burn surrounding her hands but the feeling of their magma exiting their body, turning to a hot, righteous lava. As if the blood truly was an extension of them-self, he could feel it stretching further and further, cooling and solidifying into black glass on the inside with a scorching outer layer. Chaplin hated the feeling of their nerve endings stretching like a webbing, he wanted nothing more than to sever the connection, but not before getting rid of the larger problem at stake.

You're going ——

Falco is ignored, or rather cut off by the nauseating tinnitus that strikes. Chaplin's eyes blur as hazy orange and black spots fill their vision. None of it is enough to stop them from drawing more blood as it grew into the curved shape of a cane. Raising his arms above his head and swinging down with all their strength, the cane dunks the frilled serpent into the ocean, smothering the flame and leaving the entire island in an opaque, pinkish fog. No one could see more than a few inches in front of themselves or could tell if the bloody smell of iron was from the mist or from Chaplin.

Chaplin doesn't see themself fall forward, much less actually seeing the sand and boiling waters rush towards his face, but the reflection of Falco shaking their head as if disappointed while static buzzed made their ire rise.

The anger dissipates just as fast when their eyes open again with Ivan standing over them with both hands on his shoulders fretting over Chaplin, pulling them to sit up while dusting sand of their back and cooper salt water from their face, asking question after question that were all blurred in static. With each blink of their eyes, Ivan changes.

From her grey, rough skin
to Ivanka, her skin sun kissed freckles and curly carrot colored hair
to

"You must take better care of yourself! Why must you always worry me?"

Nessa?

Unnaturally pale skin that was obviously makeup, blood red lips that matched her hair with a grey, curved horn sticking from her hair line. Oroku Nessa lays a cool cloth on Malko's forehead while their appraised doctor treated his wounds with a bored expression. His missing eye did not hinder him in the slightest.

After a strenuous training session, the smile that spread across Malko's face felt transcendent. A joy so strong it surpassed time and space.

"There is no better pass time, why else?" Malko jokes.

The smack against his arm leaves a nasty red welt, minor compared to the ache in his knees and the joints of their fingers. Seeing his sisters scowl and twitching eyebrow causes him great glee.

"Do not play with me, when Nagi gets in here she will give you the lashing you deserve, since you don't like listening to your sister."

"You wouldn't dare."

"He would."

At that assertive and no nonsense tone, their vision split into three displaying Oroku Nagi, Karai and Lotus Blossom cut into thirds, one just as unsettlingly beautiful as the last. The obvious scolding on their lips as they take Chaplin's hands in their grasp.

Blinking away the black and orange filter and returning to reality, they realize they have been sat up in the sand with their hands curled to his chest. Chaplin's sense lay dull and numb, the only source of feeling that pinged throughout their body radiated from her hands. Karai and Ivan kneel besides them with Baxter in the background. No one focuses on their face however, instead all of their eyes are glued on-

"Chaplin I am so, so sorry."

Xever's words hardly pierce the doctors ears despite from directly behind him in the shore. The red head could only stare at their charcoal black fingers.

Shards of black glass litter the sand around them. A single line of the obsidian construct having released their palms and begun its snails pace slide into the ocean. Their hand held no identifying marks like cuts or skin, not even their fingerprints, only a heavy char from the wrist down. It was as if their hands had been left on the grill for far too long. Chaplin swore he could see the muscle twitch to simulate the pain he is supposed to be feeling but with 3rd degree burns, their nerves were fried. Ivan and Baxter badly masking their disgusted gags from the smell of cooking flesh.

I don't understand-

Pencils burn pretty good don't they?

The once shocked expression shifts briefly to swift rage as Chaplin's mask cracks. Vein bulging from the forehead and tight jaw that made their face and neck ache. Biting the inside of the lip makes a drop of blistering blood sting in their mouth. He has to do everything in his power to keep their breathing steady but even then they can feel their heartbeat hasten.

"Coat pockets." Their voice is hollow and low, almost missed with the booming voice from the fog.

"Da fuck is goin' on?"

Bebop appears from the smog walking down the gangplank of the ship, attempting to and failing to wave the fog from in front of him. His face is full of wonder and confusion mixed at the sight before him. Locking his sight on Chaplin in the sand, he throws his arms up and rub at the bridge of his snout.

"Great, I got two hurt and one missin', What happened tuh chillin' out for a few days?"

Bebop is quick to meet her side at Karai even with his irritated and perturbed expression though quick to help Karai with cleaning and sanitizing Chaplin’s arm for the injection.

"Hurt? Missing? Who?"

Chaplin inquiries are the only thing keeping his fury at bay, turning it into concern; or at least the most concern they can muster considering the current circumstances. Less than 24 hours had past since Chaplin last laid eyes on everyone together so it was a helpful distraction to hear that two of them were indisposed. The anxiety in their gut was noted and ignored lest she spiral.

"Slash is in infirm…again and Chris never made it back. I just checked the cams just as all this shit happening."

"Ah, ah, do not lump us in with Xever's nonsense." Karai piped up, injecting Chaplin with the vibrant concoction. They could all see the difference as their hands slowly plumped back up in seconds, however the stench continued to linger.

"He is the one that summoned a dragon, not us."

"It was an accident!"

Her words only go as far as to confuse the warthog. Karai works on explaining Xever's accident, wrapping Chaplin's hands in gauze and bandages to protect the exposed muscle. Falco lay silent to Karai's steady attention leaving Chaplin to stew in their thoughts alone whilst worrying about Chris and his whereabouts.

Afternoon

Chris is isolating again.

Chaplin doesn't hesitate to push the bushes and twigs that combined with the rolling steam that persisted, making it impossible to see more than five feet past their face. Despite it all, when he looks down, she can see a path. Broken brush and foliage with and obvious track of aw prints in the dirt. Even with the fog persisting through the woods with the sunlight speckling the forest could not hide it.

Following the tracks, his feet only cover a quarter of Chris' prints, showcasing how much larger the mutants were comparatively to them.

What could have happened to cause this again? He was with Slash, he should feel secure.

The boy can do quite a lot, and secure is a relative term.

The solution?

The image of a shaking boy, no taller than his stomach and hair in a top knot phased through his mind. At the sight of her shadow overhead the boy flinches with such a fear that it makes Chaplin's heart ache in a strange way, forcibly removing the memory from the front burner.

How the hell is that relevant?

Not very receptive to a lesson, huh?

Did you receive mutagen with Ch'rell?

What changed in the last two seconds?

Why waste a resource and it's intended purpose?

What about Chris?

I'll cross that bridge when I get there.

Falco's huff sounds as if right next to his ear.

I was micro-dosed on both components, like our first incarnations. Not being able to combine the two made for a painful time but it did the job.

The benefits?

It makes for smoother remembering and retention of past lives. Stronger skin, better control over the magma and after a certain point Vern will show zeir face and memories.

The cons?

Its like…a chronic illness. Fucking you over, day in and day out but you're sufficiently prepped for that if your memories are anything to go by.

At the mere mention of the aches and pains that built up in their legs and the exhaustion they attempted to hide, Chaplin took deep breaths in through the nose and out their mouth. The frustration that build is left to stew on the back burner with that gut-wrenching memory and the knowledge that his cane will eventually be forced to come back but Chaplin would delay that for as long as possible.

Good luck with that little miss Pride.

They switch the topic again just as fast as they did the first time.

How did you die?

You read the report, why I gotta show you?

Why wouldn't you?

Because it would enrage you.

No longer in a forest on a beach but the streets of New York once more, a memory came forth.

Red and blue lights.

Dozens of cop cars surrounding them.

The sudden darkness as Falco drops to the murky alley concrete. As his heart slowed and the magma in his blood cool down to a halt, the last image in his mind is Lotus Blossom and Taiyo. The heart ache is all he feels as he goes to sleep, and as selfish as he knows it is, he wishes for her to follow him into the abyss. So he may get the chance to try again.

Scheming bastard ratted me out. He deserves everything that the Chief is giving 'em and more.

Chaplin, suddenly on their knees from the phantom gunshot to their head, rights them-self. Steeling her nerves from the wrath that makes them shake and fists tighten inside their bandages. He can feel their wounds exposing the heat of the magma as it seeps from the cuts on the palms. The disgusting irony of it all made them grind their teeth together as a string of curses in their mother tongue fly through his mind.

You kiss your mother with that mouth?

Yes I do, not like she would disagree with me.

Chaplin continues their search, taking deep, even breaths to calm his fast beating heart. The sweat on their forehead drive them to wipe it away against the sleeves of his lab coat.

Look like you do bite, good, that's what Nature likes.

Chaplin chooses to blame the warmth in their face on the humidity of the fog surrounding them and not the smug, almost proud tone in Falco's voice.

You will not let this go, will you?

Falco doesn't have the chance to reply before the doctor trips on a bump hidden by flowers and leaves. Their first instinct pulls them to catch himself on her hands, wrapped in bandages and still healing. As soon as they touch the floor with too much pressure, the ringing takes over and the heavy numbness move up her arms all the way to their shoulder.

With their eyes closed, Falco looks back laughing at Chaplin’s agony. As much as seeing his own face laugh at him, it quickly faded into the background as a muffled voice from the real world seeped through their ears.

"---plin? Fuck happened to you?"

When the ringing dies down, Chris is the first sight before him while laying on her back.

Kneeling over and carefully grabbing the doctor under the arms to sit him up before quickly snatching his hands away. He sat with his legs and arms crossed and hands tucked tight under his armpits. With dodgy eyes darting from side to side and ears folded over, Chris is unable to look at Chaplin for too long.

Guilty and self soothing body language.

"Chris, have you been here all night? We had a fire hazard earlier, you could've been badly hurt." Chaplin asked calmly, ignoring the throbbing in his hands.

Chris huffs and turns away from the shorter. The growl, though quiet, can be felt from the vibrations in the air.

"I'm fine, get off my back."

Irritation.

"Chris, you seem upset about something. Would you like to talk about it?"

"I said I'm just fine." Chris declaration is followed by him tightening his arms around his knees to his chest. Chaplin can't help compare him to Gottard.

Once a sweet and loving dog before the night of their siblings death. After that night however, a shell of the dog he remembered as a child.
Gottard had turned cold…they all had. Their home had become a desolate wasteland where emotions ran with a steady mixture of icy hot rage.

Chris was no different.

"Chris, even if you don't want advice yet, I'm at least here to listen."

They can see the cogs slowly turn as Chris weighted his options.

"I…I did something really bad, like even worse than I thought before." Chaplin had become accustomed to staying silent to leave Chris the chance to fill silence. Now was no different. Instead of words however, Chaplin is hit with a memory, not of his or Falco's, but Chris' own. The face of a shocked Rocksteady while Chris' irritation filled their ears.

"Fuck off! I ain't gotta explain shit tuh you! Just 'cause you all are ridin' his nonexistent dick, don't mean I will too! I apologized and Bebop accepted it, so stop askin' about it!"

"Shit, I'm doing it again."

Chris grabs his ears in a tight grasp, forcibly suppressing his powers and making the crystal blue glow of his markings dim. Chaplin stares in astonishment.

Chris' is projecting his memories…

Oh he's doing a lot more than that. What do you think happened to Taiyo?

"Chris, what happened between you Slash?"

Chris' defenses raise quickly, turning his head completely towards the woods. "It's nothing, just some shit between us, he'll be-"

"Chris, your cousin is far from fine. Are you aware he has no recollection of yesterdays events."

The heavy flinch in Chris' body is like he'd been hit but its the first time they both make eye contact. It is brief, but with Chris it never stayed for long.

"A-are you serious?"

"According to Bebop, he doesn't even remember making it onto the ship last night."

At the mere mention of the warthog Chris' eyes dart back back to the ground, eyes glowing a crisp, crystal blue arms tightening around his legs. Chris continues to look like a shameful dog but the rumble in his chest gets louder, shaking the leaves on the ground and the trees surrounding them. Chaplin continues to press, waiting for it to happen again and get to the truth.

"Chris, Bebop has been quite kind to you. What reason do you have-"

Chaplin hardly has to finish the question before the growl silences and a projection appears again. Less of one projection but a compilation of them, back to back with the same dull and uninterested tone that thundered louder than any growl could.

"Send him to his mother."

"Why the hell should I care?"

"This will keep him out of my hair."

Over and over, the foggy and static face of the elder Bradford and his attempts to stay as far from his spawn as possible. A complete and utter disregard for his son up until the last moment.

"Do you have to make everything so difficult? Think about the possibilities!"

Chris stood outside his father study, double bay doors firmly shut however his ear close to the crack underneath. James Bradford's voice is happy, happier than Chris had ever heard his father while talking about him. The anger stews in Chris' stomach at a steady simmer. With each word out of his mouth, the simmer rolls to a boil as the elder Bradford continued to speak to the mother of his

unwanted

unexpected child.

"A complete removal of our parental rights. He'll go to whatever school on the east coast, do whatever activities, be the…musical prodigy you want him to be… and we ain't gotta lift a finger raising him. All you gotta do is drop him off… Look, I don't get it either, I guess the guy got attached, his loss and our gain."

Their gain.

He provided nothing, so he was nothing.
If he remembers how useless I really am, he'll throw me away.

"Stop! Stop making me think! I am useful, I am worth it, I just have to…to…"

Chris begins pulling at his ears with eyes glued directly at the forest floor and mystic marks glowing blindingly bright. As his fists tighten and loosen rapidly, Chaplin can see the shiba's forearm…jiggle? Akin to a waterbed, his fur bobbles as if no muscle lay underneath.

"Chris, I'm not the one making you think those thoughts. You-"
Raising one bandaged hand towards their shoulder and the growl returns with a snap of dangerously sharp teeth in their direction.

Chris' glowing blue eyes burn with a bright blue, concentrated, cold flame. Twitching lips pulled back to display pearly white fangs sharp enough to rip their hands apart. Despite the warmth and humidity of the tropical island around them, Chris shakes as if freezing cold and the tears well up just on the edge of falling.

Chaplin stops, pulls their arm back to center and scoots away. Chris can feel it and the distance between them and it makes the guilt in his stomach feels like a bottomless pit.

"I'm sorry Chris."

From a snarl to wide open mouth, the shock and confusion is evident. Chaplin doesn't look at Chris as their face is points down to the ground.

"We had agreed on compartmentalizing where we had sessions and I broke that by trying to initiate a session outside of your comfort area, and I am so sorry. I've been so worried about you with all these changes that I forgot when to separate my professional role and my personal one."

Chaplin made a point not to look into Chris’ vulnerable eyes.

"Chris, you are a living, breathing being. You deserve to be able to take up space without being seen as an opportunity cost. You are not a burden, you have never been a burden. In friendly terms, your parents and Ch'rell are just assholes."

"…You…I'm your friend?"

Out of everything Chaplin just said, it was the fact they considered the younger man a friend that stuck out to him. The question is asked with a stuffy nose and so much bewilderment that it makes Chaplin's heart squeeze uncomfortably in their chest just as the memory before provoked.

"Second only to Ivan, you have given me the warmest welcome. Bebop and Karai regard me in a professional sense and the others are quite weary of me but you, you provide excellent company and a slew of chatter that is comforting as I've never liked working in silence. You are a good soul that has gone through terrible circumstances, a commonality we all share I believe. We have all made mistakes, its the recovery that defines us. Will we leave it to fester…or will we try to right the wrong, despite our pride."

The silence that surrounds them full of the sounds of the ocean with the undercurrents of sniffing from a few feet away. Chaplin doesn't react to the sniffling but when a warm body and fluffy back padded with muscle touches their back, they smile. The silence is no longer thick with tension but soft with ease as the two calm down from the rack of emotion that almost overflowed, even Falco can not hide his awe.

You're actually good at that, maybe it is better I ain't raise him.

That's not true, if Lotus really changed you like you said than you would have been a great father.

Strokin' my ego won't help you with your powers.

I know, but it might make you less of a pain in my ass.

The laugh in his ear only makes Chaplin relax more. Laughter meant connection, even if it was little by little. A small flash of a memory returned, as the young Keno made it's way to the forefront again with a tongue sticking out of his mouth in concentration and face burning red under the surface. Brown hair in a top knot that hides the canine ears underneath it all. Between two shaking hands is an equally shaky sphere of water. Malko can see the boys unsteady stance and the sweat running down his face as he failed to keep the hydrosphere stable, when his tall shadows clouds over his head, Keno flinches and the water drops back into the miniature pond and splashes back to wet his hakama, sandals and the stone he stood on. When he looks up in fear, his words do not match the fear he conveys

"Damn-it, uncle I almost had it!"

Keno's voice is indignant and full of embarrassment, a failed attempt to simulate his father's own stern tone. The shake in his frame tells the teacher all he needs to know and the obvious fear makes Malko's heart contract in a painful squeeze.

Malko kneels to reach his nephews level, the pain that travels through his legs and up his spine is nothing compared to seeing the tears fall down Keno's cheeks. They move to wipe the tears away with the back of his scarred hand, slow and deliberate with his movements.

"Do you believe in yourself?"

The young master sniffles again, refusing to make eye contact with his teacher.

"H-How can I? Mirri-"

"-is none of your concern. She is the sun, you are the moon, the two can not be compared. Her powers are deprived from a different source, your power comes from your belief,."

Malko lifts the boys face. No matter the scars and burns that cover him, Keno did not look at him in horror like how the staff and villagers do when they see him. He has always looked at his uncle with trust, clinging to his side more often than not.

"I shall always believe in you, even if you do not. Use my belief until you can build your own. The day my belief becomes irrelevant to you will be the day you no longer need my teaching." Keno finally smiles with a tearful nod but a steady smile, the shake in his bones is gone and he is calm and smiling through the dried trails of tears down his chubby cheeks.

"A teacher. " Chaplin's sudden whisper breaks the still silence between the two. A sudden breakthrough that should be so obvious strikes him like a shock to their nerves.

"Huh?"

"You need help learning to control your powers, and I know how."

"…Why does that not surprise me?"

"Because this story has played out before, we're just now remembering it."

And they finally get it.

Falco's annoyingly smug tone is not enough to ruin Chaplin's breakthrough. Chris' sudden bark of laugh does startles them however.

"You're a fuckin' weirdo but…you're cool Chapstick." Chris leans further into Chaplin's back, and they once again sit in brief silence. The smell of iron, salt and ozone marks the silent understanding. "Looks like we're gonna be attached at the hip."

"You say that like its a bad thing. I told you I enjoyed your company, and I know you'll be a wonderful student."

Chris sniffs, wipes at his wet nose and hastily changes the topic. A fact that is noted by Chaplin but allows it to slide. "Is…is Slash like, okay?"

"He's in infirm I believe but he should be okay. We can check on him together if you'd like."

"No…I need tuh…do some stuff. Can you-?"

"Of course."

"And…Ivan?"

Chaplin feels a mixture of pride and surprise by his concern for Ivan. "Mildly perturbed but mostly at Xever right now. Fire hazard, remember?"

The silences stretches out again before Chris sighs, slaps his knees with padded paws and stands in one swift motion.

"She's pissed at Xever, which makes apologizing way easier on me." He says it with a sudden confidence that, despite Chaplin's logical thoughts of how Ivan had definitely not forgotten about the events of yesterday, if their scoffs and eye rolls were anything to go by at the mere mention of the shiba, but that wasn't his problem or priority to deal with. Also, compared to the reluctance towards apologizing to Bebop and now, the confidence has boosted and Chaplin believed it would continue to grow.

Chaplin goes to stand up but instead their sense of vertigo strikes again as their head grows light and the static almost takes over their ears until two padded paws grab him under the armpits. She is hefted into a fireman carry over the shiba's shoulders.

"Uhh, Chris, you don't have to-"

"You smell like you're gonna pass out, so suck it up."

...

"I'm sorry, smell?"

"Like…like your low on something, I don't know the actual lingo dude."

He can smell your iron levels. Anemia is a big symptom after using your powers along with disorientation.

Falco explains succinctly. Chaplin can't help but feel embarrassed over the care but gets over it quickly. From Chris this would be a rare action.

"Thank you Chris, that's very kind of you."

"Yeah yeah, lets just keep this between us for now." Chris grumbles but Chaplin does not take it to heart. "and…I'm sorry too. I almost ripped your damn hand off." The gruffness made the sweetness more palatable.

Chaplin hums in silent acceptance, Chris hums back.

Night

"Charles."

The strong alto of Karai calling their first name sends Chaplin's nerves on end and warm their face straight to the bone. The unnatural shiver that wracks their mind and body, its strangely addictive to their soul. Falco's glorious whisper of praise does not go unnoticed and Chaplin hates that their subconscious agrees.

When they turn to look at her she looks as radiant as the first day they laid eyes on her. Flashes of Lotus Blossom blink in and out of their eyes, they only difference is her hair. The same cool, low lid stare makes him freeze as if under the stare of a cobra. The sunset behind her casts a cool colored halo around them. The comparison of an angel is right there but not the kindhearted, sweet faced angels. Instead the image of a biblically accurate angel fill his mind. Terrifying on the outside but righteous on the inside. The thought almost shuts off every mental synapse they contained, they were paying such close attention to the hybrid they almost almost miss her question.

"Were you not able to find Chris? I wouldn't be shocked if the waves took him away."

"N-no, I'm actually keeping an eye on him as we speak." A stutter in their words, another anomaly that only Karai could cause.

Chaplin points to Chris as he creeps up on Ivan, tapping on the back of her shoulder. The duo can see the quick turn and sneer that arose upon the rhinos face, never one to hide how she felt. Incredulous eyebrow and a near audible click of her tongue as Chris spoke to her with fidgeting hands gripping at the sides of his pants. Chaplin simply wished they could see Chris' face, to at least attempt to read his maw to gauge how worried they should be.

However, the sneer turned to a smug smirk before Ivan locked the shiba's head into a headlock deep in the corner of her arm. WIth a laugh escaping her as he gave the other a harsh noogie on the top of his scruffy head.

Karai huffs, eyebrow raised and dimples in their smirk undeniable."You truly are a miracle worker."

"H-hardly, but thank you. How's Slash?"

"Still alive I assume."

It's all Karai says before locking her icy stare onto Chaplin. From the top of the head down to her hands they inspect the orange top with a tilted head and scrutinizing eyes. The cold jitters that goes up and down their spine makes Chaplin shiver and the monologue in her head makes their face burn bright red. She can't even blame it on Falco like she wished, their own thoughts without a filter running around checked only by mental willpower.

Don't think I forgot about our little conversation from earlier.

What's it gonna take for you to let that go?

Falco brings forth his own memories from the depths as a response.

"Something wrong Chaplin? Don't tell me you're afraid of snakes." Baxter voice is full of ridicule as he raises an eyebrow, briefly looking away from his notepad while the starstruck intern can only stare.

In front of the one way glass stands a monstrous size cobra, flared hood, scaly arms with claws nails and fangs as sharp as ice picks.

Doctor Stockman reads his fast sweaty palms and stiff posture as fear, but he lacks the knowledge of their fast beating heart and inner monologue that screamed at them.

He should feel fear, or at least apprehension at the towering figure, but feelings like those were rare. Instead they begin to imagine what it would be like to be bitten by those teeth, ripped apart by those claws and wrapped up and squeezed so tight his eyes could pop out of their skull and crushing his lungs. Like a rat, aware of the pain its natural predator could cause and yet…he wanted it. They craved for it. Their obsessive tendencies liked to flare it's head, but not like this, not this intense, not this sudden. As if a beast awoke in his heart and mind that made him shiver.

"N-no doctor."

"What else do you want from me Stockman? I have other things to attend to." Karai voice crackles through the connected intercom, her voice sends a cold wave down Chaplin making a section of their brain shut down. Digging their nails into their wrist, drawing blood that soaks into her compression shirt sleeve, it does enough work of silencing the thoughts.

Perfection rarely existed in reality. Snowflakes were perfect in symmetry and individuality, but imperfect in mortality. Flowers were perfect in beauty, but eventually would wither and die. Perfection always had an expiration date.

But the woman before him, though completely unaware of Chaplin's existence, seemed to change their opinion in mere seconds.

To live and to die and then do it all over again just to behold the same beauty with a different pair of eyes, that was perfection.

"Chaplin! I do not have time for your useless whimpering. You had better toughen up or I will have no use of you."

Stockman startled Chaplin from their mind, the whirl wind of emotion and awe that struck them now gone as Karai had long left the testing chamber. Stockman slaps a folded up piece of paper in their hands while scolding them before taking off to do whatever was next on his list.

Unwadding the paper, it is a snapshot image of Karai in her fully mutated form, a diagram of her mutated anatomy inside and out.

She is Perfect.

It's gonna take a whole lot that you're too anal retentive to give right now.

Chaplin knows they should feel sheepish, having their own memories used against him. Instead, they simply let it go. Internally roll their eyes and gives a dismissive shake of their head.

The point you've made only strengthens my resolve of not taking your advice. My obsessive tendencies are not to be revered or acted upon.

"Give me your hands." Karai demands suddenly, snapping Chaplin from their mental conversation once again. Their urges say to obey to the command but their logic and will prevails over all.

"I promise you I am in no pain-"

"Did I ask if you were in pain?" Karai quickly interrupts. Her face is clear with annoyance about having to ask.

"W-well no but-" Chaplin stutters again.

"Exactly." She bends her fingers in a give motion, daring the other to deny her again. Chaplin obeys without another second of hesitation. He feels weak having not fought back more but, in a way it feels right to them.

What a woman.
I Concur.
The one thing the two can agree upon.

Karai unwraps the bandages, uncaring of the waft of leathery skin. Their hands healed unevenly, some parts still lay charred and black but others looks more like second degree burns, minor blisters and light scarring across the skin. Around the wrists it was dull red, while it could be felt it held no pain for Chaplin, only a mild awareness.

Karai inspects their hands with heavy scrutiny before she speaks again. "Come with me."

She give them no other option, wrapping her arm around Chaplin's own and leading them to the ship. Chaplin felt like a lamb being lead to slaughter but, strangely felt joy over that terrifying feeling.

Get used to it kid, that emotion will drive you far.

"Is Falco continuing to cause you problems?" Karai peeks through their fringe out of the corner of her eyes walking up the gangplank and through the sun room. "I have no qualms setting him straight."

Yes ma'am.

Fear is far from what Falco feels if the little goosebumps up Chaplin's arms says anything.

"Ah, oh no…he is simply talkative, giving advice when it was not asked for." Chaplin's blush heats up their face, her marks begin a slow glow "I-I have him handled my dear, I swear."

Their low hum tells Chaplin how much she truly believes him.

Up the elevator to the infirmary, the first thing Chaplin sees is Slash in the bed they have begun to label as his own but the first sound to reach their ears are deep, muffled screams of pain that get louder as they step closer to the lab in the back.

Chaplin hardly worries about the screams, they actually provide a sick sense of pleasure after learning more in depth of Ch'rell's betrayal.

They slip from Karai's grasp with a silent apology to walk towards Slash. Sat up with a hand rubbing his head and Tokka, his newest shadow at his side. His eyes widen seeing Chaplin and his mouth opens with one name.

"Chris-"

"Is safe. I am checking on you in his stead. Give him time, he will find you when he is ready."

Slash looks like he is going to open his mouth before his eyes dart up towards Karai and quiets himself quickly. Another development they would keep notice on.

"How are you feeling? Any change of memory?"

Slash closes his eyes, silent for seconds before he grunts in pain, gritting his teeth in a heavy grimace. Tokka is quick to extend her neck to lay on Slash's chest with a rumbling churr. The pain eases away by the second.

"I…I remember passing out in the sun room and Tokka grabbing me." Slash looks down at their fellow turtle with a half smile on his beak. "Guess I should be grateful he's been following me around."

Karai makes a noise of muffled surprise but says nothing more.

"Well let me do a check on you and then I should be able to let you loose."

Chaplin goes down the checklist, blood pressure, temperature, eye dilation. Down to the smallest detail, the constant back and forth between equipment changes leaves Chaplin short of breath and black spots covering their vision.

You know you need to sit the hell down.

I'm almost done, it won't be-

Chaplin barely makes it through the thought before the ringing returns and the joint pain turns to a burning, agonizing twitch in their leg muscles. The spasm makes them lose balance, almost falling to their knee if they had not grabbed the railing of the hospital bed.

"UNCLE!"

A high pitched, fearful voice fills his ears. His heart knows it as his niece even if he can not see her. The burn travels down his arms and legs, focused at every joint and nerve ending and forcing a migraine to attack them. When his eyes open the feeling of cold stone at his back has been replaced by the feeling of a cushy futon underneath and Mirri stares down at him with a face cloaked in concern and golden flaxen hair framing her pale skin, almost too bright to look at just like the sun she is meant to represent.

"Mother and Auntie will have your head when they hear about you over exerting yourself again."

"No ifs?"

"I love you uncle, but not enough to incur auntie's ire, much less my own mama."

Mirri's shaking head and worry quickly shifts to low lid eyes before Slash appears again. Hands over the bed railing and underneath Chaplin's arms while Karai places a stool in beneath him and both slowly shift them to sit down.

This fast?

The magma running around your veins is causing muscle and skeletal atrophy. The extreme heat is degrading your joints and nerves while slowly eating away at your bones as you make more of it. The more you walk around without an aid of some kind the worse off you get, nimrod.

Falcone's exasperated tone is followed quickly by Karai's own.

"Where is your cane? Do not attempt to lie to me."

Karai question makes causes a rise of anger. That blasted cane was the last thing they wanted. He had pulled the cane out to help recover after Falco's takeover of his body and even the day before but had quickly hidden it again. She had hoped no one even paid much attention to it, to fall into the shadows of everyone's eyes as per usually. Not this time apparently.

"You are free to go Slash." Chaplin forces themself to ignore Karai while taking the IV needles out of Slash's arm. They can feel the marks on his face burn bright, the only visible signs of Falco’s irritation. Chaplin continues on as if it were not happening.

"Oh thank God." Slash is quick to jump from the bed with Tokka by his side. "Lemme get outta the danga' zone."

Tokka's eyes shift between Chaplin and Karai with a chirp of fear. They both scuttle out before they could get caught in the crossfire that was Karai.

"Chaplin." Karai's voice is scarily low but Chaplin does not turn their head.

I swear on everything sacred if you don't open your mouth-

"Why don't we go see how Anton and Stockman are faring with Ch'rell."

Jackass.

Chaplin smirks as they awkwardly limp to the lab. Finally something different than being called a pussy.

"Again."

As the doors slide open, the reverb if Anton voice is followed closely by a muffled scream.

The sight of Ch'rell strapped and magnetized to his robotic suit. Inside the chest cavity were hooks as they pulled at the corner of his mouth and hooked through his flesh, making every frown or tug to cause a river of amber blood to roll down their cherry red skin. His eyelids were clipped open but the same metal barbs, top lids hooked into the false ears on the top of his head and the bottom lids harshly tugged at the metal on his mouth. All hooks now permanent fixtures of the Utroms android body after some fixing between Stockman and Chaplin.

The experimentation continued.

"We are not interrupting?"

Bebop does not flinch by her sudden entrance, almost prepared for the intrusion.
Baxter does however.

While injecting a clear and green coated liquid, the doctor is shocked by Chaplin's loud voice echoing around the room, the jolt of his arm yanks at Ch'rell's skin and muscle breaks the needle in two inside of their skin.

"If I wasn't in a good mood, I would have- " Baxter yanks the broken needle, beginning to complain before silencing himself suddenly. Eyes wide staring at Chaplin.

Or rather, behind them.

"Do. Not. Ignore. Me."

That low, threatening tone darkens the room as the tight pressure of vines wrapping around Chaplin's arms and abdomen with pricks of thorns stabbing into them, stopping any magma from escaping the point of opening. However the pressure lessened the ache in their body from the waist up, joint pain disappearing in a flash.

The brief relief is shattered as he is turned towards Karai, glowing green eyes glaring and face shifted to a flared hooded cobra. Her jaw unhinged and fangs lay expose from their mouth under a twitching lip. The thorny tendrils escape form the palms of their hand, wrapping tighter and tighter the closer she brings him. The thorns prod and the vines squeeze her lungs almost tight enough to burst, but they only continue to blush that was covered by orange glow of their marks and the terracotta shine in their irises.

"Falco, where is their cane?" Karai spits angrily. She only gives the carrot top a second reprieve of air for Falco's voice to trail out obediently and without a second of hesitation.

"In the suitcase under their bed."

Karai huffs as she harshly deposits the doctor next to Bebop before sliding away to their room off the side of the lab. Chaplin curses himself for not locking his bedroom door but had not assumed today to be the day Karai would begin to violently care about their wellbeing. Karai is quick to return with the cane in hand, shoving the assistive device into Chaplin’s hand and trapping them against the table, poking their chest with a claw of a nail to emphasize their next words.

"I will not repeat myself. Never, ever ignore me. Obey me the first time and we we will not have a repeat of this."

Chaplin is too stunned to respond as she slithers off to a metal table away from the rest of them. She is fast yet precise gathering materials off of shelves like a mortar and pestle all while they begin to grow a various bouquet of flowers from the palm of her hand. One by one, yellow and green plants sprout from her palms and begin to surround them.

"You find Chris?"

Bebop startles them, appearing besides the doctor as Baxter continued his ministrations on Ch'rell. With arms crossed and head tilted, he is unfazed by Karai's aggressive grinding and stirring in the background.

"Y-yes, he wanted to apologize to Ivan and reflect on some things."

"And Slash?"

"Discharged. His memories will return in due time. I believe it to be a direct effect of Chris' powers but we will begin working on it."

Bebop heaves a sigh of relief at this. "Good and uh, explanation for that?" Bebop whispers the second half of his question, pointing his chin to Karai who angrily ground at the petals that frothed in the bowl in her hands. Chaplin scratches at the back of their neck in embarrassment.

"I uh…I walked away from them when she asked me about my assistive device."

Bebop clicks his tongue and nods his head with complete understanding. "Yeah, don't do that. Take it from a professional, never turn your back on them."

Chaplin can only nod with a flushed face staring at Bebop from the corner of their eyes, catching him doing the exact same thing. Chaplin know the dreaded question was about to show itself even with Anton’s eyes hidden behind his shades, and still after so many years of life Chaplin would struggle to answer it.

"You doing alright? With all these changes, I mean?"

"I'm here. Can't ask for much more from me."

While the words to help others describe how they felt was easy, doing it for themself was always a difficult task. That answer had become her standard. Not good, not bad, but present and aware. They prepare for the onslaught of follow-up questions that their standard answer routinely provoked.

Instead, Bebop nods and turns his eyes back to Stockman and Ch'rell. "I getchu, nothin' wrong wit that. I'm glad youse here Chapstick."

That was new.

"Oh. Uh, t-thank you."

The feeling of tears welling behind their eyes and the bobble of the Adam's apple makes them cough as to lower the chance of their voice cracking with tears. Just like Chris, Chaplin changes the subject.

‘Glad to see the irony ain’t lost on you.’

"I have the ideas of a possible solution to my weakness…if I can spitball them at you." Chaplin asks, finally beginning to lean against their cane. Though it provides a heap of comfort he refuses to heave the sigh of relief to spite Falco and his big mouth.

"Shoot."

"Could I perhaps be…mutated?"

Bebop's sudden stare puts Chaplin on high alert. "Last I checked, you died from natural causes caused by the mutation. You better have a good reason to want to be mutated."

"Well, for starters Ch'rell didn't say I died from mutation causes, they said natural causes. The past incarnation from Ch'rell's memory could have been sick long before the thought of mutation, and are we really taking anything Ch'rell said without a grain of salt? He has lied to us before." Chaplin rebuts without a beat of hesitation.

"Secondly, the pros of my mutation would be a better control of my powers, which includes Falco and the arrival of more relevant advice that could be most beneficial now that we are in space." Chaplin pauses to take a deep breath before continuing.

"Thirdly, a mutation would better prepare my body so that incidents like today do not effect me to such degree as they have. I would be more in-tune with the rest of the crew in terms of strength-"

"And the cons?" Something about Bebop's voice is much more frightening than Karai's.
Karai's anger lit a fire in the depths of his stomach; Bebop's anger however, was something different.

He felt completely safe in the warthogs presence, that was no lie. However, it would be a lie to say the warthog did not produce the fight or flight response in their brain. The adrenaline and cortisol in his blood made their hair stand on edge and a bright wave of phantom heat warm their face as the fire raged around him. Screams surrounded him as the Hamato clan perished slowly in the flames. The fire on the outside matched the magma on the inside and Malko felt whole.

He had no clue of Nagi's location, but from the doorway of the room he lay in, he could see his dear brother in law standing in the courtyard of the Hamato compound. Flames catching from the house onto the grass of the garden began licking around his ankles, catching onto his clothes and crawling up his legs. Even from the distance he lay from, he could see the skin bubble and the thick hairs burn.

Oroku Saki did not react as the flames burned him to the bone. His coal red eyes are focused onto the wretched Hamato that took Nessa from them all, trapped in that sphere of unfettered energy. Even if he could not see Saki's eyes, he could feel the rage radiating off him vibrating the air around him, around them all.

Lying to him would be more than a simple mistake. At this point in their reincarnation cycle, lying would warrant a death sentence in Bebop's eyes.

"…I will begin to inherit more chronic symptoms, less iron may cause anemia, atrophy of my muscle and skeletal system, joint and nerve pain. However I have dealt with pain like this before and can manage that without interfering with anyone. I promise I can care for myself-"

"That ain't an option for no one anymore."

Chaplin can feel a sense of defiance rising in their chest, but it is stamped out in the most surprising manner.

"I'll grant yuh request, but you got conditions. First, the amount of mutagen you get is limited. Think of it like…a flu shot or somethin', you take it when you need it. Two, youse need tuh appoint someone to help you. I know yuh self experiments was useful but doin' that shit alone is the stupidest thing you've done so far." Bebop turns his full body to Chaplin, full attention on the shorter of the two. Falco was strangely silent under their leaders strict gaze.

"This ain't just a you thing, this is an us thing. I refuse to have anyone die on my watch, neva' again."

With every word, Chaplin's irritation and resistance lessened. While terrifying, it was still undeniable of how much they cared for his cohort. It made the doctor think of her mother, the once harden general Cassandra Steranko. Heavily stern but with great reason.

"Yes sir. Thank you."

"Anton or Bebop dude, youse family now."

"Give me your hands."

Karai appeared suddenly in front of the duo with medical grade tweezers and an opaque bottle on a stainless steel plate balanced carefully in one hand and mortar and pestle in the other. Chaplin did not hesitate to raise his hands for the snake woman, having sufficiently learned their lesson when it came to listening to her.

Unwrapping the bandages Karai began to pick at the dead skin and flesh with the freshly sanitized tweezers. Not a single ounce of pain was felt as chunks were plucked and placed on a metal plate. No one spoke, only Ch'rell's muffled screams and Baxter's ceaseless muttering filled the empty air.

Karai rubbed a yellowish cream from the rock bowl to their hand before wrapping it back up in fresh gauze and bandages. Reaching for the bottle with a strange clear tincture inside, they grab the dropper full of said liquid and lift it towards Chaplin's mouth.

"Open."

"Wha-"

The question was close on Chaplin's lips but a stroke of heat runs through his face, igniting the freckles along his face. Falco forcibly widens their jaw into an open smile, even taking her command one step further by kneeling down in front of her. The aches in their knee means very little compared to the smile on Karai's face as she effortlessly pours the tincture into his mouth.

"Thank you Victor, seems at least one of you know how to listen."

While the shiver of excitement down their spine is real, the pleasure of it all is dimmed by the chortling laugh directly next to him from Bebop. He tried and failed to hide that laugh behind his closed fist.

"And I will be assisting you on your mutation injections."

Yes ma'am.

"Is this really-"

"Yes it is. Find me in six hours. If you don't, I will find you and you do not want me to do that."

Karai stamps the finality in her statement by leaving. No space for objections or rebuttals. They simply slither out.

Chaplin hates the blush on her face, and the smug aura of Falco in their head but the muffled laughter through closed lips behind him is their tipping point in anger and restraint.

"S-Shut up, ублюдок!" Face bright red and orange, freckles and magma blush underneath the skin and teeth clenched in irritation, its the first spark of emotion expressed in front of the chief.

Bebop's laugh only gets louder, even when being called a bastard. Completely nonplussed by Chaplin's sudden change to their mother language or their yelling. Hands on his stomach and tears at the corner of his eyes, his snorts and chortles make his ire reduce to a minor simmer.

"Sorry, its yuh face." The light hairs close to his eyes did nothing to hide the laugh lines around them. Anton knows they're irritated from the strange sense of indignity by the lack of autonomy.

"I get it, you want to be seen as reliable and self sufficient, but I and she don't give a shit about that." Bebop points a thumb in the direction that Karai just left in. " You should know that better than any of us." Anton's smile is small but genuine, the smile assists the memory that floats from the depths and all they can see is tatami mat floor. He could not stop the shake in his bone, presenting respect with his entire body, despite the burning feeling running up and down his legs and hips as he knelt.

"My Lord."

"No more formalities. We are family…and I come baring a gift."

Straining their neck to look a few inches in front of their person, all he can see are his covered legs and hairy brown hands with violet webs across the wrists gently setting the creation down in front of him. His lord unveiled a metal staff, a cuff up top with a solid black handle, bumpy and uneven but he knew it is his own leftover obsidian from training.

"I heard what happened today, along with your limp continuing to degrade. I had my brother create this, the staff can be adjusted to your comfort and is reinforced against your blood."

Malko does not lift his head any higher. His breathing shudders and their body quakes in disbelief by a gift of this level of craftsmanship and care.

"I cannot accept-"

"You put us both at great risk…declining my gift, I mean."

Malko head twitches up to finally take in His Lord's face. A bright smile on his face with his tusks protruding from his bottom lip, hair interlocked into coils and styled into a top knot. "Daktari put much effort and ingenuity into this creation, he would be insulted by you not using it. As well, you and I are both aware of the havoc both of our sisters can wreck when they do not get their way."

Oroku Saki spoke nonchalantly as if speaking to an old friend. His smile and the rich violet trails up his chest and neck calms Malko's heart and mind. Those eyes halt the redheads full body shivers and replaces the scared frown into a small, self conscious smile into the corner of their lips. He removes the cowl around his mouth and lowers the hood over his head. The patches of burned skin and singed hair to the root on the entire right side of their head. The multitudes of cuts across his face mark his troubled past.

Unsure and afraid, but they still speak up.

"…They are…rather dangerous."

"That you are right, Brother."

Oroku Saki's warm eyes smoothly transitioned to Anton, the familial smile return as if only a day had passed. Whatever rage had build like a bonfire in their chest is doused by the smile, a fraction of the face he would direct towards Ivan but none the less warm and caring.

"We truly are repeating the past." Chaplin whispers to themself. but that does not stop Anton from responding.

"Course we are, but this time ain't nothing bout to take you guys from me."

Ch'rell's screams fill the air as a morbid background noise to this sentimental moment. The screams slowly turned bubbly as the Utrom drowned on their own life fluid. It solidified Anton's sentiment as pure proof of what would happen to anyone that tried to separate them.

Chapter Text

Day 3: Morning

"Eita Porra! The hell have you been doing to him?"

Baxter flinches, but it can not be helped. His intense focus made for easy work for Xever to walk up behind him without being noticed. His fly DNA has only exacerbated his aversion to loud noise and made him want to jump away with every sudden sound. Xever Montes was far from an exception since he hadn't changed volume overnight.

The tablets in his many hands all displayed Ch'rell in different states of togetherness. On one tablet it showed how they first met the Utrom, another with two scars after Bebop's wrath was released, before tentacles became blackened and his chest was cut open to showing their grey stone of a heart surrounded by brain matter and blood the color of a sickly bile yellow. It was horrid to see and nearly made Xever puke at the simple sight, he couldn't imagine what the smell could be like.

"None of your concern, w-w-what do you want." The doctors' stutter returned. It only ever seemed to return when he was around Xever or Anton.

"Bebop sent me in here to make sure you had eaten, but knowing you, you haven't."

Baxter visibly bristled at this. "And how the hell-"

"Please think before you finish that sentence."

Baxter shuts his proboscis promptly. Returning to continue his intense study, no longer caring about Xever over his shoulder. He wasn't shocked the next time Xever opened his mouth.

"What is wrong with him?"

"Nothing that is not under my control. Ch-ch-Chaplin got to experiment with him and now it is my turn. "

Looking at Ch'rell's newly cut open form, Xever can tell he is fully awake and comprehending the pain but unable to act on it. His limbs looked burned to a crisp at the ends and his eyes reflected like black pools, yet they continued to smile.

"Thanks to…Dregg," Baxter shudders at her name. "I seem to be able to take over their mental capacities, with some side effects but I have them all noted down."

Baxter had already become accustomed to his powers, even felt at home with them in no time at all. He was better put together, focused.

"So I'm always going to be the disaster twin, huh?"

Baxter looks up at Xever as he leaned against the metal wall between their separate sleeping arrangements from Bebop and Rocksteady’s. Xever looked far from his usual charming self, instead his eyes were locked to the floor as his his head shook from side to side.

"Y-yuh-you zzaid it, not me. Your performance yezzterday was quite, how you say, a flaming dizzaster." Baxter and Xever scoff in match tone and intonation. It startles them both into making eye contact, Baxter with his scarlet red eyes and Xever with yellow mixed with specks of honey brown.

"God, you are too much like Kendra, such a big mouth but when you’re right, you’re right." Xever waves his hands, copying Baxter's sarcastic phrase while unseeing of doc's flinch in regret of his own choice of words. "I would hate me too if I were either of you. I’m a flaming disaster."

Baxter didn't move, he barely breathed as Xever talked about his own twin sister that sounded, scarily like himself. He didn't like how Xever's voice was hollow and with every word out of his mouth he felt like he was giving a eulogy. Xever was supposed to be a beacon of life, not death.

"Xever, I wazz 15 years when I lost my brother. I am now 38. I had lived 23 yearzz without my brother who died right in front of my eyes; died protecting me. From his own st-st-stupid ch-choices sure but," Baxter's fists shook at a steady speed. "When Ch'rell walked into my lab with you, I assumed you a prank. A sick, dizzzgusting prank that I did not find funny. He had the gall to tell me you were a part of the Purple Dragonzz, another color coded coincidence that I did not appreciate."

Stockman's voice sounds scathing. If Ch'rell had not been the topic at hand, Xever would think he was on the receiving end. It was strange to feel as if he was being talked down to by his sister after so long and yet it felt so refreshing. It was as if no time had even passed between the two.

"I didn't hate you…I don’t hate you. You of all people should know how I am when I am afraid."

Xever does not have to fight hard to conjure the memory of his past life. It was as if Stockman had summoned it himself.

‘God-Bless it Bax!’

The thought runs though my mind as I sprint towards Baxter’s private school at top speed, kicking up asphalt with each step. If TJ could sense something was wrong from halfway across town, than something truly was wrong.

Skidding across the corner of the school gates as the last few cars pulled away into traffic, bumping shoulders with students walking the opposite direction, all ignoring his brother being pushed up against the brick wall of the school building by the collar of his uniform.

"You st-st-steaming pile of SK-sk-skunk shit!" Baxter yelled stuttering up to his bullies. "N-nu-no w-wonder you get dr-dr-dropped off in a different car every day. If-if-if you were m-muh-y spawn, I wouldn't claim you either!"

In spite of his stutter, Baxters’ big mouth made keeping him safe so, infuriatingly hard. Baxter Stockman was trained in psychological warfare by their sister who knew Baxter would struggle to defend himself physically but had great strength in mentally tormenting his foe.

By Baxter's upward smirk and outrageous cackling, I already know Baxter hit the bully exactly where it hurts. However it only made the bully beat him up three times as bad, breaking the arm of of his glasses and punching him square in the gut before I can finally reach and shove them all aside and brandishing my spring loaded switchblade.

"Yeah…I guess I do."

It truly was scary how similar the doctor was to his own twin sister. Right down to the foul mouth that would make a grown man cry.

They sit in silence as Baxter continues to tap away at his tablets, sensing the gears in Xever's mind turn and turn as the memory processed throughout him. Baxter hated how concerned he was over the fish that seemed to talk endlessly suddenly leaving him in what should be a peaceful silence. He felt no peace, only how wrong it felt. Baxter was the quiet one, not Xever.

"I'm sorry…for leaving you. For doing something so stupid that you were alone for so long."

Baxter can hear the choke in the others voice and while it made him slightly uncomfortable, Baxter knew this apology was more for Xever's sake then his own. The words still brought him comfort as the apology that Xever gave him was identical to Bastion’s, even bumping shoulders the exact same way his brother used to.

"You don't have to be scared anymore. I'm not going anywhere."

I wonder what Ch'rell did to cause such a rift

Baxter coughs to feign neutrality instead of whatever hint of emotion he caught from Xever, all while a small ache formed around his eyes and his frontal lobe. A memory trying to present itself but trapped behind the wall of trauma. Baxter is aware if he tries to reach for it, it will only cause him further pain.

“Do you still have your phone?”

“Uhhh,” Xever thought deeply. “I think so? It’s junk up here.”

“Nothing is junk, everything has potential if you have time to cultivate it.”

Ch'rell would have the answer to his locked away memories and he would get it back one way or another.

But for now, he would show his potential.

Afternoon

Slash was starting to become concerned with how much Tokka was sticking by his side.

Despite being similar species, he could not understand anything that the larger snapper churred, chirped or whimpered at him but they could understand him with full clarity. General feelings of contentness and curiosity where easy to sense but no actual words.

Convincing the young turtle to go off and play was a harder feat then he thought it would be. It was only when Tokka saw Slash pop a squat in the shallows with no intention to move did he finally waddle off with his brother.

Slash ducks his head into his shell, hiding the lower half of his face. While he can still breath, the position forces him to manually breath to calm himself. His brain had on Karai's words to him cycled in his mind on an endless repeat.

"I am simply trying to make sense of her love for…well…you."

So strong in tone and so harsh in content, Karai was the inverse of how he remembers Lolo sounding. If it weren't for her face, Slash would still be denying their connection.

The question lingered in a way that upset him. Not because if it's bluntness, but because even he did not have the answer. He will never know what Lotus Blossom saw in him. She had called him a protector but he had failed at every test he had to protect his loved ones. Jennikka, Chris, Karai and Anton. He couldn't even protect himself against Ivan in a cage fight. There was no denying he was a-

"May I sit?"

Karai's voice made Slash stretch his neck with a strangled gasp. His shock is palpable as it’s the first time he's ever produced a noise like that. Looking up at Karai who stood unfazed at his flinch with her eyes locked on towards the water.

"If its alright with you and your bodyguard?" Following their line of sight showed Tokka who stared from the depths, eyes squinting as he peeks over the wavering water with distrust.

"Don't make no difference tuh me," Slash rights himself, eyes on the sand and voice low. "Didn't think you'd want to be around me…"

Karai suppresses the urge to roll her eyes at Slash's pathetic stature and tone as she wraps her tail around herself in the sand. Her usual sharp tongue has been dulled for now.

"I know how I sounded, that was- I didn't…" Karai stopped her half baked ramble, took a deep breath and tried again.

"What I said was harsh and badly worded and it hurt you…I'm sorry." Karai willed out of her mouth, looking out into the waves and digging her hands into the sand to hear the beat of the earth beneath her. It calmed her like nothing else.

"If you ain't mean it like dat, than what did you mean?" Slash questioned. He couldn't look at her face without feeling an ache in his chest. That face he once assumed to be his Lolo, full of scorn, hatred and deep disappointment matched the same one Karai made when she saved Anton. It was the same face she made every time she looked at him, it was the same face they made now.

"You were the last thing she thought about. Her dying wish was that we would still be close in her new life." Karai admitted. "Lotus Blossom loved you. Her life was full of love from every corner…Look at me now. I was not raised to love or be loved. Weapons can not love, only welded."

Karai's voice did not change, it did not wobble with tears or strain with hurt. She spoke as if it was an unchangeable, indisputable fact.

"However…you were. Even if she was not around for your entire life, she still taught you love. My real question, without my insensitive wording, is what was it like to be loved by her?"

Silence.

Howls of joy from Rahzar that greatly contrasted the pure silence from his brother who continued to stare with an intense gaze towards his mother and the smaller turtle. Slash took his time to answer, pulling at his mask tail and closing his eyes. When he finally turns to look at the younger girl, he truly takes in how much she not only looked like his god mama beyond her facial features.

"Karai…The truth is, you love just like Lolo. You love hard, you make it obvious who you care about and…who you don't. I saw you yesterday with Chaplin, with Tokka and Rahzar; Bebop and Rocksteady. You tried to get close to me and I pushed you away to the point you got hurt. You have every right to hate my guts, the same way Lolo hated my pops. I was a coward. A failure."

Staring up at Slash, she watched as his downtrodden face morphed into a middle aged Hunter Mason Senior, baring his teeth down at me with barely restrained anger as the vein in his neck pulsed. He would soon grind his teeth to dust with how hard he was biting down.

"You're not taking him! It's time he starts learning!" He spit.

"He is a child! He does not need to be around this!"

Gesturing to the drug covered living room behind me, lines of white powder and pills of varying color on the coffee table. Lillian, once meek yet vibrant, now lay on the couch strung out of her mind and whispering to the nothingness in the air. Her eyes half shut as my Taiyo lay against her chest in her loose arms, playing with his mothers hair and humming to himself the new song I had begun to teach him.

Mason Senior took a step closer to me, almost stepping on my heel covered toes.

"Watch yourself, It would be a shame anyone caught wind of your side work, little miss Spy."

Seeing his smug grin makes my stop, my scowl shifting slowly to a grand smile as I begin to laugh. A tinkle of a bell laughter that gets louder as My spine elongates beyond my full height. Chest to chest with the broad man, neck streching to tower over the blond man and look him in the eye.

"Oh how little you actually know about me Mason. You think you intimidate me with all your muscle when I know you're being pumped full of experimental drugs, trying to make those muscles last. I have a ssssecret, just for you…"

Leaning in close to hiss directly in his ear.

"Oroku Saki does not care about you. The only thing you have of worth is that child and if you think I will let you abuse him, then you are sorely mistake. I'm not a spy, I am an assassin. I have no qualms against killing you if you cross me…"

My canines grow to a point as my lips pull back and display the knives in my mouth. My eyes shifts to slits and my forked tounge end flicks out to taste the fear that wafts off Mason Senior. That smell follows me as I turn on my heel to pick the young boy up from his drugged mothers loose arms and into my secure ones.

"You can tell anyone you want of this interaction, who would ever believe you?" I warn as she walks towards the entry way and out the door with my Taiyo in my arms.

Taiyo smiles up at me without fear, reaching to play with my braid.
My pride and joy.
My Sun.

"Lotus was soft on you because you were a child to be nurtured, I am hard on you because I know you can be better. Regardless, your strength is your persistence, your resilience. That is what she saw in you…and what she is showing me now."

Karai stealthily slithers closer to Slash, shoulders touching slightly. She can see in the distance as Tokka relaxes his posture and wander away into the waves, no longer suspicious of his mother hurting his turtle brethren.

Slash lets the silence calm his brain. It is peaceful and though he is quite aware that Karai is not his Lolo, it was nice to have someone that would hold him accountable the same way his Lolo would have. Less like child and mother but siblings.

And just to prove Slash’s point, Karai asks the question she's been wanting to.

"Why did you choose Slash instead of Taiyo? Your god mother had that perfectly chosen for you."

A small migraine begins to form behind his eyes as a trapped memory tries to reach the surface, not forcibly held back but, simply locked behind a door that he did not have the key to. If he tries to pry for too long the migraine grows stronger.

"No one else has ever called me that but her. It feels like a title I have to earn. Just give me time and one day I’ll use it again.”

Night

"Look at everyone alive and well for once! Youse all done dyin' n' disappearing?"

Bebop walked down the gangplank with a smile on his face and a bounce in his step. Everyone sat in silence around the bonfire again with a few alterations. Chaplin sat on a log bench with Chris on one side, quick to scoot the pair over to make room next to Rocksteady.

Karai is trapped under the heads of Tokka and Rahzar while Slash is stuck underneath Tokka’s tail in his lap.

Baxter and Xever were sat with Xever on a log and Baxter between his mechanical legs, fixing them with his tool hands.

Wait.

"Stockman, what is youse doin'?" Bebop asked with wide eyes.

"Uhh, what does it look like I'm doing?" He replied with heavy sarcasm, not taking his gaze away from the foot in front of him. After a while, the silent stares begin to grate his nerves.

"You act like this is meant to be shocking. Daktari gave me a simple run down of my powers. I need a tool, my hand turns into it, less work for me." Stockman explained in as few words as possible.

The sudden hand ontop of Baxter’s head ruffles his hair as Bebop walks past the spiritual twins with a laugh on his lips. "Always the overachiever, good job."

Bebop sits his rump next to Rocksteady, putting an arm around her waist and pulling her close.

"Okay look, I’m gonna level with youse all that saying chill out ‘n get along is easier said than done. After everything I know alotta of yuh are shocked tuh be around each other.”

Chris can feel the real and imaginary stares that makes his neck scrunch.

"I don’t want no more bad blood, even though I can’t control that personally, I can extend a peace offering."

Bebop reaches a hand into his short pockets, briefly ruffling around to pull out a plastic sandwich bag and a cigar wrapper. Chris and Ivan both gasp at the sight as everyone else continues to process the green clumps.Chris and Ivan are clear excitement while everyone else is in disbelief. Bebop just laughs loudly seeing the faces that surround him.

"You've had weed this whole time!" Chris exclaims.

"Where was that hidin’?" Ivan questioned.

"Was emptying my duffel and it was in the side pocket of one of our bags, I completely forgot 'bout it. Only trouble I might have are these."

Bebop wiggles his thicker, almost hoofed fingers. Chris and Xever stare their claws while Slash stares at the hands that now lacked two fingers on each side.

"I can roll it." Chaplin proposes calmly.

"Chaplin I swear everyday I learn something new 'bout you!" Bebop excalims. Chaplin shrugs as he takes the bag from Bebop and slowly crushes up the clump inside the bag as they talk.

"You underestimate how popular I was in high school. I've done it all at this point."

"But…weren't you like 12 in high school?" Baxter questions.

"I was 12 when I graduated high school, I was 10 the first time I smoked at all."

Anton looked at Chaplin with pride, a vast different face from the others shock and awe. Karai refused to make eye contact at all, hands busy with petting her pet mutants.

"It truly is nothing to brag about, I used to smoke whenever I needed to calm down, now I can control that myself." Chaplin take the cigar to slice the wrapping open with a nail, dumping the guts into the fire and smelling the waft of burning tobacco as it swirled around them.

“At this point it’s muscle memory.” Chaplin sprinkles the ground up plant and rolls the sticky brown wrapping. In less than a minute a blunt is rolled and held between Chaplin’s fingers as if they had never been burned to begin with.

"So whose in and whose out? Baxter I’m assuming youse out and Karai unless someone wants to teach you." Anton eyes dart towards Karai whose head jolts up and around to stare at Anton with scarily wide eyes. Their head turned so fast it could have given her whiplash.

"Big mouth!" She shouts.

"What, like that’s supposed to be a secret. Who here thinks Karai has smoked before?"

The silence is loud without the sounds of nature like there would be on Earth, the only sound that speaks up for Karai is the crashing waving of the blood tinted oceans.. Karai crossed her arms and buried her tail in the sand.

"Take your pick of a teacher if you wanna join, you've got plenty to pick from." Anton teased.

Though heavily annoyed, Karai does ponder. The easy choices are Bebop or Rocksteady themselves, she is most comfortable with them and is sure they would only make fun of her lack of experience only a little bit.

In the back of her mind, her brain tell her to pick Chaplin. They are the one with the most experience and they were definitely not going to make fun of her for being new at this.

Along with a memory.

Lotus Blossom stands outside of the dive bar in Brooklyn as far from NYU as possible to get away with smoking the herbal cigarette. When her lighter does not light, a flame appears from the left.

A man with reddish brown hair, dark green eyes and sickly pale skin stares back at her with a miniature torch lighter in one hand and a cane in the other. She does not ask him for a name as he needs no introduction.

Devotion.
Victor Falcone, 'Oroku Saki's ' prodigy.

If only Rachael could see her now, Their plan was working.

“Not the best place for a lady such as yourself to be smoking that miss..." He asks, covering the flame from the winds and lighting the self rolled reefer. She slowly leans down to light the far end, watching his eyes drift to the slightly cleavage from her small V-neck dress. She takes a long drag before speaking with the smoke still in her lungs.

"Blossom, and don’t you worry about me." She blows the smoke in his face, watching his pupils dilate at the sound of her voice and the scent of her joint in his nose.
Oh, how she had missed him and his strange obsession.

"Chaplin. Teach me."

Karai does not give the carrot top a moment to register before they slither her way, subsequently pushed even closer when Tokka and Rahzar sandwich them together from either side. While Chaplin blush turns bright with the magma under their skin, Karai only soaks in the warmth he let off, completely ignoring Chris as he is pushed away to sit closer to the twins.

Chaplin lights it while quietly explaining to Karai and as the good student she was, only coughed a little on their first drag. Round and round the lit stick is passed and the conversation flows with the smoke. No secret plots from bugs or Utroms, simply a genuine conversation from them all. Baxter and Slash ribbing each other, Xever cheering Chris up as he pulls a long drag to fill his lungs and eventually chokes as was his habit. To Ivan who takes two small puffs before smiling down at Anton with teeth that glittered.

What is percieved as seconds to everyone around him is an entirely new life before his eyes, pushed to the front of his brain as the memories flowed through Anton. They had been his brothers, his sister, his spouse and his children. Regardless of the role they played, it was a clear view of what Oroku Saki was trying to protect.

They were his family. The family he so longed for; craved.

The same family that Oroku Saki had created.

His vision can not decided on what view to give him, that of the past or the one of now.

Baxter and Xever sat side by side just like Daktari and Taigo, as the younger boy with a fin down his head and webbed fingers braided his buggy brothers strands into cornrows. The older rolled his flesh eye but did not move, relishing in the hold.

Karai leaned against Chaplin like his sister Nagi and Domoslava, heads close together together and quiet. Karai stares unnervingly at the other who tries and pretends to not notice. He remembers Nagi telling him about how warm Malko was as one of her favorite things about the other. Like being sat right next to the hearth she had once said.

Chris and Slash, though away from each other still conversed over the bonfire mirroring Mirri and Keno as the two played a game across from each other, the elder obviously winning if Keno’s face was accurate.

And Ivan, his StarFire sat directly next to him, pulling the warthog to her uncovered chest, layered in tattoos up to her elbows. Reaching up to plant his hand on the Rhiuni's cheek, she looks down at him with a bright smile and and kiss on his piggy snout.

Chaplin had been right, the past truly was repeating itself.

He had always heard his Pops talk about times arrow. How it never stopped, only marching forward until the fatal end.

Not for them.

Times arrow never stopped, it only changed forms, changed looks. The memories faded, never truly leaving. It was still the same on the inside.

But what was the goal they were headed towards? When Bebop tries to remember that critical detail, only the voice of the Oroku Saki enters his mind, saying two words and nothing else.

Not yet.